C# Enums and casting

Question

If you declare an enum in C#, the default type is automatically int.

So then why in a case statement or other instances when using the enum do you have to explicitly recast in order to use the values? What's the point of having an underlying type if you have to explicitely case or am I just doing something wrong here?

private enum MyEnum
        {
            Value1,
            Value2,
            Value3
        }

    switch (somevalue)
                {
                    case (int)MyEnum.Value1:
                        someothervar = "ss";
                        break;
                    case (int)MyEnum.Value2:
                        someothervar = "yy";
                        break;
                    case (int)MyEnum.Value3:
                        someothervar = "gg";
                        break;
                }

Answer 1

What is the type of somevalue? If the type is MyEnum casting is un-necessary and should work without error.

If the type is int then yes you will have to cast up to a MyEnum in order to properly switch / case. But you can make this a bit simpler by casting the value instead of every case statement. For example

switch( (MyEnum)somevalue )  {
  case MyEnum.Value1: ...
}