Enum ToString appears as a number

Question

I have an enum

private enum TimeUnit
{      
  Day,
  Month,
  Year
}

And I'm populating a description with:

return string.Concat(unit, "(s)");

Where unit is a TimeUnit. Most of the time this works fine and displays "Days(s)" however on a particular server it's displaying as "1(s)"

What would cause this?

Answer 1

Try using Enum.GetName()

it also has the advantage of being safer since it requires:

• The value you passed in isn't null.
• The value you passed in is of a type that an enumeration can actually use as it's underlying type, or of the type of the enumeration itself. It uses GetType on the value to check this.

Answer 2

You should format appropriately using ToString:

return string.Concat(unit.ToString("F"), "(s)");