Defines a set of symbolic constants with ordered numeric values ala C enum types. Now capable of creating creating ordered bitmask constants as well. See the BITMASKS section for details. What are they good for? Typical uses would be for giving mnemonic names to indexes of arrays. Such arrays might be a list of months, days, or a return value index from a function such as localtime(): use enum qw( :Months_=0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec :Days_=0 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat :LC_=0 Sec Min Hour MDay Mon Year WDay YDay Isdst ); if ((localtime)[LC_Mon] == Months_Jan) { print "It's January!\n"; } if ((localtime)[LC_WDay] == Days_Fri) { print "It's Friday!\n"; } This not only reads easier, but can also be typo-checked at compile time when run under use strict. That is, if you misspell Days_Fri as Days_Fry, you'll generate a compile error.