Re: Why keysym constants in gdk/gdkkeysyms.h are defined as macros, not as an enum?

[Mark Vender <markv743 yahoo co uk>]

On 06/26/2012 05:31 PM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> If we used enums, we would restrict the keysyms to the declared values.

Well, C doesn't actually have such restriction. From the user's point of 
view, enums and macros are equivalent. Both of them work as aliases to 
an int value, the only difference is that macros are replaced by the 
preprocessor and and enums - by the compiler.

> It's possible for keysyms not to have a constant declared in GDK, for
> example when a new keysym has been added to X.org but GDK hasn't been
> updated yet.

User could simply use the X.org macros until equivalent keysyms become 
available in GDK.

> So using enums instead of constants is detrimental to
> applications and GTK+ not breaking when keysyms get added.

It's impossible for an application to break when enum values are added. 
They end up as integers within the code anyway and unless their values 
change, API/ABI stays the same.

Cheers,

Mark