Value of an Enum

Question

I'm little bit confused: Is this really the only method to read a value from an Enum-Code?

(int)Enum.Parse(typeof(MyEnum), MyEnumCode.ToString())

Something such essential and no better way to get the value?

Answer 1

I don't know, what you mean by "Enum-Code", but why not just convert it to an int?

int value = (int)MyEnum.MyEnumCode;

Answer 2

No, you can just cast to int directly:

(int)MyEnum.MyEnumCode

Elaborating a bit. Internally an enum is actually an int. Therefore the cast is free. But it also means that you can easily have values in your enum that doesn't exist. E.g.

MyEnum val = (MyEnum)-123544;

Is perfectly valid code.