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

the only reason to use this method is if the flags are not contiguous and if flags will be added periodically.

 _
Public Enum Skills As Integer
    Skill1 = CInt(2 ^ 0) 'bit 0
    Skill2 = CInt(2 ^ 1)
    Skill3 = CInt(2 ^ 2)
    Skill4 = CInt(2 ^ 3)
    Skill5 = CInt(2 ^ 4)
    Skill6 = CInt(2 ^ 5)
    Skill7 = CInt(2 ^ 6)
    Skill8 = CInt(2 ^ 7)
    Skillx = CInt(2 ^ 10) 'bit 10, some bits were skipped
End Enum


    Dim mySkills As Integer = Skills.Skillx Or Skills.Skill4 Or Skills.Skill8 Or Skills.Skill6
    Dim count As Integer 'count of bits on
    count = CType(mySkills, Skills).ToString().Split(New Char() {","c}, _
                                                     StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Count

if "better" means faster this ain't ;) it.