I have the following enum:
public enum Urgency {
VeryHigh = 1,
High = 2,
Routine = 4
}
I can fetch an enum "value" as string like this:
((int)Urgency.Routine).ToString() // returns "4"
Note: This is different from:
Urgency.Routine.ToString() // returns "Routine"
(int)Urgency.Routine // returns 4
Is there a way I can create an extension class, or a static utliity class, that would provide some syntactical sugar? :)
In order to achieve more "human readable" descriptions for enums (e.g. "Very High" rather than "VeryHigh" in your example) I have decorated enum values with attribute as follows:
public enum MeasurementType
{
Each,
[DisplayText("Lineal Metres")]
LinealMetre,
[DisplayText("Square Metres")]
SquareMetre,
[DisplayText("Cubic Metres")]
CubicMetre,
[DisplayText("Per 1000")]
Per1000,
Other
}
public class DisplayText : Attribute
{
public DisplayText(string Text)
{
this.text = Text;
}
private string text;
public string Text
{
get { return text; }
set { text = value; }
}
}
Then, used an extension method like this:
public static string ToDescription(this Enum en)
{
Type type = en.GetType();
MemberInfo[] memInfo = type.GetMember(en.ToString());
if (memInfo != null && memInfo.Length > 0)
{
object[] attrs = memInfo[0].GetCustomAttributes(
typeof(DisplayText),
false);
if (attrs != null && attrs.Length > 0)
return ((DisplayText)attrs[0]).Text;
}
return en.ToString();
}
You can then just call
myEnum.ToDescription()in order to display your enum as more readable text.
How about a little reflection? Should work with all underlying types.
public static class EnumTools
{
public static string ToRawValueString(this Enum e)
{
return e
.GetType()
.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static)
.First(f => f.Name==e.ToString())
.GetRawConstantValue()
.ToString();
}
}
Then:
Console.WriteLine(Urgency.High.ToRawValueString()); //Writes "2"