# Enums and Pattern Matching

In this chapter we’ll look at enumerations, also referred to as enums. Enums allow you to define a type by enumerating its possible values. First, we’ll define and use an enum to show how an enum can encode meaning along with data. Next, we’ll explore a particularly useful enum, called `Option`, which expresses that a value can be either something or nothing. Then we’ll look at how pattern matching in the `match` expression makes it easy to run different code for different values of an enum. Finally, we’ll cover how the `if let` construct is another convenient and concise idiom available to you to handle enums in your code.

Enums are a feature in many languages, but their capabilities differ in each language. Rust’s enums are most similar to algebraic data types in functional languages, such as F#, OCaml, and Haskell.