Happy New Year

[Benoît Minisini <benoit.minisini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Happy New Year 2026 to everyone!

During the holidays, I have added support to "named enumerations" to Gambas.

What's that new feature?

First, you have a new syntax for declaring enumerations by specifying an 
"enumeration name".

--------------------
Public Enum <Name> Is <Constant 1> [ = <Value1> ], <Constant 2> [ = 
<Value2> ] ...
--------------------

Two remarks:

- You can now reuse an already declared integer constant in the 
enumeration. It allows you to both have a specific documentation for 
that constant, and have an enumeration using it.

- You can use the same already declared constant in several enumerations 
if you want.

Then, you have a new syntax for declarating datatypes taking their value 
inside that enumeration, using its name.

--------------------
Dim <Name> As Enum <EnumerationName>

Public <Variable> As Enum <EnumerationName>

Public Sub Method(Arg As Enum <EnumerationName>) As Enum 
<OtherEnumerationName>
--------------------

It's very important to understand that it's a -compiler only- feature.

The interpreter does not see the enumeration. Only integers exist for 
him. You can assign any integer value to a variable declared as 'Enum 
<Name>', even the values that are not a member of the '<Name>' 
enumeration. Nothing is checked at runtime.

Moreover, the compiler does not check at all that you actually use an 
existing enumeration name.

The compiler just use the named enumeration declarations to generate 
metadata (in the '*.list' and '*.info' files), and this metadata is used 
by the IDE for implementing automatic completion.

So it's not a new datatype, but just some new syntax that allows the IDE 
to implement better automatic completion.

At the moment, I added public named enumeration in almost every 
component, but not the deprecated ones. If you find some missing 
enumerations just tell me or add it yourself! And if you have any 
question, just ask.

Enjoy it.

--
Benoît Minisini.