Enumerations as data structures

Although we have already seen in Chapter 2, Basic Swift, that enum in Swift goes a lot further than merely representing integers with more memorable symbols; we have only just scratched the surface. The enum in Swift is so powerful that its use encroaches far into terrain that once belonged exclusively to heavyweight data structures such as classes.

In this section, we'll look at three areas that are particularly powerful, one of which we might not expect to associate with an enum:

• enum methods
• Associated types
• Recursive enum definitions