What's the best C# pattern for implementing a hierarchy with an enum?

Question

I\'m implementing value types which represents a distance (or length). There\'s an enum that represents the different units of measure, eg:

public enum Distance         


        

Answer 1

Generally speaking, I would go with Anton's solution. But if your implementation can't use that, and you need things to be used similar to an enum, I think this is a natural way to use the units:

DistanceUnit.Metric.Millimeter  
DistanceUnit.Imperial.Inch  

In order to use it like that, there should be:

public static class DistanceUnit  
{
  public static MetricDistanceUnit Metric;
  public static ImperialDistanceUnit Imperial;
}   

Where MetricDistanceUnit is:

public enum MetricDistanceUnit  
{
   Millimeter, Centimeter ...
}

And ImperialDistanceUnit has the same structure..