C# naming convention for enum and matching property

Question

I often find myself implementing a class maintaining some kind of own status property as an enum: I have a Status enum and ONE Status property of Status type. How should I solve this name conflict?

public class Car {   public enum Status   {     Off,     Starting,     Moving   };    Status status = Status.Off;    public Status Status // <===== Won't compile =====   {     get { return status; }     set { status = value; DoSomething(); }   } } 

If the Status enum were common to different types, I'd put it outside the class and the problem would be solved. But Status applies to Car only hence it doesn't make sense to declare the enum outside the class.

What naming convention do you use in this case?

NB: This question was partially debated in comments of an answer of this question. Since it wasn't the main question, it didn't get much visibility.

EDIT: Filip Ekberg suggests an IMO excellent workaround for the specific case of 'Status'. Yet I'd be interesting to read about solutions where the name of the enum/property is different, as in Michael Prewecki's answer.

EDIT2 (May 2010): My favorite solution is to pluralize the enum type name, as suggested by Chris S. According to MS guidelines, this should be used for flag enums only. But I've come to like it more and more. I now use it for regular enums as well.

Answer 1

The definition of "Off", "Starting" and "Moving" is what i would call a "State". And when you are implying that you are using a "State", it is your "Status". So!

public class Car {   public enum State   {     Off,     Starting,     Moving   };    State state = State.Off;    public State Status   {     get { return state ; }     set { state= value; DoSomething(); }   } } 

If we take another example from the one stated where you'd like to use the word "Type" such in this case:

public class DataReader {     public enum Type     {         Sql,         Oracle,         OleDb     }      public Type Type { get; set; } // <===== Won't compile =====  } 

You really need to see that there is a difference between enums and enums, right? But when creating a framework or talking about architecture you need to focus on the simillarities, ok lets find them:

When something is set to a State, it's defined as the "things" Status

Example: The Car's Status is in Running State, Stopped State, and so on.

What you want to acheive in the second example is somewhat this:

myDataReader.Type = DataReader.Database.OleDb 

You might think that this says against what i've been preaching about to others, that you need to follow a standard. But, you are following a standard! The Sql-case is a specific case aswell and therefore need a somewhat specific solution.

However, the enum would be re-usable within your System.Data space, and that's what the patterns is all about.

Another case to look at with the "Type" is "Animal" where Type defines the Species.

public class Animal     {         public enum Type         {             Mammal,             Reptile,             JonSkeet         }          public Type Species{ get; set; }      } 

This is following a pattern, you don't specificly need to "know" the Object for this and you are not specifing "AnimalType" or "DataReaderType", you can re-use the enums in your namespace of choice.

Answer 2

I'll add my 1 euro to the discussion but it's probably not adding anything new.

The obvious solution is to move Status out of being a nested Enum. Most .NET enums (except possibly some in Windows.Forms namespace) aren't nested and it makes it annoying to use for the developer consuming your API, having to prefix the classname.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that flag enums according to MSDN guidelines should be pluralized nouns which you probably already know (Status is a simple enum so singular nouns should be used).

State (enum called States) is the vocative, "Status" is the nominative of a noun that the English like most of our language absorbed from Latin. Vocative is what you name a noun for its condition and nominative is the subject of the verb.

So in other words when the car is moving, that's the verb - moving is its status. But the car doesn't go off, its engine does. Nor does it start, the engine does (you probably picked an example here so this might be irrelevant).

public class Car {   VehicleState _vehicleState= VehicleState.Stationary;    public VehicleState VehicleState    {     get { return _vehicleState; }     set { _vehicleState = value; DoSomething(); }   } }  public enum VehicleState {     Stationary, Idle, Moving } 

State is such a generalised noun wouldn't it be better to describe what state it is referring to? Like I did above

The type example also in my view doesn't refer to the reader type, but its database. I would prefer it if you were describing the reader's database product which isn't necessarily relevant to the type of reader (e.g. the type of reader might be forward only, cached and so on). So

reader.Database = Databases.Oracle; 

In reality this never happens as they're implemented as drivers and an inheritance chain instead of using enums which is why the line above doesn't look natural.