On page 208 of the original Camel (1st edition), There is a subroutine that I think will do what you want:

sub enum {
    local($_)=@_;
    my(@specs)=split(/,/); #changed from local to my as it is preferab
+le since perl 5.
    my $val;
    for (@specs) {
        if (/=/) {
            $val = eval $_;
        } else {
            eval $_ . ' = ++$val';
        }
    }
}
[download]

An example of use is given:

&enum(<<'EOL');
   $RED, $GREEN, $BLUE, $CYAN='a', $MAGENTA, $YELLOW,
   $BLACK=-1
EOL
print "$RED $GREEN $BLUE $CYAN $MAGENTA $YELLOW $BLACK\n";
[download]

would print: 1 2 3 a b c -1
I wonder who wrote this originally, Randal or Larry? Care to tell us merlyn?
-ase