Counting the number of flags set on an enumeration

Question

I\'m sure there must be a much better way of doing this. I\'m trying to do a count operation on a Flags enum. Before I was itterating over all the possible values and counting t

Answer 1

 _
Public Enum Skills As Byte
    None = 0
    Skill1 = 1
    Skill2 = 2
    Skill3 = 4
    Skill4 = 8
    Skill5 = 16
    Skill6 = 32
    Skill7 = 64
    Skill8 = 128
End Enum


    Dim x As Byte = Skills.Skill4 Or Skills.Skill8 Or Skills.Skill6
    Dim count As Integer
    If x = Skills.None Then count = 0 Else _
        count = CType(x, Skills).ToString().Split(New Char() {","c}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Count

depends on the definition of "better".

the check for Skills.None is required because if no bits are on, the string() returns Skills.None which results in a count of 1. this would work the same for integer, long, and their unsigned relatives.