Enum ToString with user friendly strings

Question

My enum consists of the following values:

private enum PublishStatusses{     NotCompleted,     Completed,     Error }; 

I want to be able to output these values in a user friendly way though.
I don't need to be able to go from string to value again.

Answer 1

I use the Description attribute from the System.ComponentModel namespace. Simply decorate the enum:

private enum PublishStatusValue {     [Description("Not Completed")]     NotCompleted,     Completed,     Error }; 

Then use this code to retrieve it:

public static string GetDescription<T>(this T enumerationValue)     where T : struct {     Type type = enumerationValue.GetType();     if (!type.IsEnum)     {         throw new ArgumentException("EnumerationValue must be of Enum type", "enumerationValue");     }      //Tries to find a DescriptionAttribute for a potential friendly name     //for the enum     MemberInfo[] memberInfo = type.GetMember(enumerationValue.ToString());     if (memberInfo != null && memberInfo.Length > 0)     {         object[] attrs = memberInfo[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);          if (attrs != null && attrs.Length > 0)         {             //Pull out the description value             return ((DescriptionAttribute)attrs[0]).Description;         }     }     //If we have no description attribute, just return the ToString of the enum     return enumerationValue.ToString(); }