String representation of an Enum

Question

I have the following enumeration:

public enum AuthenticationMethod
{
    FORMS = 1,
    WINDOWSAUTHENTICATION = 2,
    SINGLESIGNON = 3
}

T

Answer 1

In your question you never said that you actually need the numeric value of the enum anywhere.

If you do not and just need an enum of type string (which is not an integral type so can not be a base of enum) here is a way:

    static class AuthenticationMethod
    {
        public static readonly string
            FORMS = "Forms",
            WINDOWSAUTHENTICATION = "WindowsAuthentication";
    }

you can use the same syntax as enum to reference it

if (bla == AuthenticationMethod.FORMS)

It will be a bit slower than with numeric values (comparing strings instead of numbers) but on the plus side it is not using reflection (slow) to access the string.