How to assign string values to enums and use that value in a switch

Question

Basically a series of titles will be passed into the switch statement and I need to compare them against the string values of the enum. But I have little to no idea how to do this correctly.

Also, I don't know if this is even the best approach so if anyone has any ideas?

For example:

enum {     doctor = "doctor",     mr = "mr",     mrs = "mrs" } 

and then switch through the string values I've assigned them.

Answer 1

I found that the best way for me to do this is by using the System.ComponentModel.DescriptionAttribute attribute on the enum values.

Here is an example:

using System.ComponentModel;  public enum ActionCode {     [Description("E")]     Edit,     [Description("D")]     Delete,     [Description("R")]     Restore } 

Then, to use it, create an extension method on a static class like so:

Edit: I rewrote the method to include a great suggestion from Laurie Dickinson so that the method returns the name of the enum value when there is no Description attribute. I also refactored the method to try to improve functionality. It now works for all Enums without using IConvertible.

public static class Extensions {     public static string GetDescription(this Enum e)     {         var attribute =             e.GetType()                 .GetTypeInfo()                 .GetMember(e.ToString())                 .FirstOrDefault(member => member.MemberType == MemberTypes.Field)                 .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false)                 .SingleOrDefault()                 as DescriptionAttribute;          return attribute?.Description ?? e.ToString();     } } 

So, to get the string associated with our enum above, we could use the following code:

using Your.Extension.Method.Namespace;  ...  var action = ActionCode.Edit; var actionDescription = action.GetDescription();  // Value of actionDescription will be "E". 

Here is another sample Enum:

public enum TestEnum {     [Description("This is test 1")]     Test1,     Test2,     [Description("This is test 3")]     Test3  } 

Here is the code to see the description:

var test = TestEnum.Test2; var testDescription = test.GetDescription(); test = TestEnum.Test3; var testDescription2 = test.GetDescription(); 

Results will be:

testDescription: "Test2" testDescription2: "This is test 3" 

I wanted to go ahead and post the generic method as it is much more useful. It prevents you from having to write a custom extension for all of your enums.

Answer 2

You can't have an enum with an underlying type of string. The underlying type can be any integral type except char.

If you want to translate a string to your enum then you'll probably need to use the Parse or TryParse methods.

string incoming = "doctor";  // throws an exception if the string can't be parsed as a TestEnum TestEnum foo = (TestEnum)Enum.Parse(typeof(TestEnum), incoming, true);  // try to parse the string as a TestEnum without throwing an exception TestEnum bar; if (Enum.TryParse(incoming, true, out bar)) {     // success } else {     // the string isn't an element of TestEnum }  // ...  enum TestEnum {     Doctor, Mr, Mrs }