How to use enums in C

Question

Suppose we have an enum like the following:

enum Days {Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday};

I want to make an instance of this enum and give it an appropriate value, so I do the following:

Days day = Days.Saturday;

Now I'd like to compare my variable or instance to an existing enum value, thus I'll perform the following:

if (day == Days.Saturday)
{
    std::cout << "Ok its Saturday";
}

Which gives me a compilation error:

error: expected primary-expression before ‘.’ token

So, just to be clear, what's the difference between:

if (day == Days.Saturday) // Causes compilation error

and

if (day == Saturday)

?

What do these two truly mean, because one is OK and the other generates a compilation error?

Answer 1

This will be sufficient to declare your enum variable and compare it:

enum Days {Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday};
Days day = Saturday;
if (day == Saturday) {
    std::cout << "Ok its Saturday";
}