Associating Additional Information with .NET Enum

Question

My question is best illustrated with an example.

Suppose I have the enum:

public enum ArrowDirection
{
    North,
    South,
    East,
    West
}
         


        

Answer 1

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Reflection;


public enum ArrowDirection
{

[Description("Northwards")]
North,

[Description("Southwards")]
South,

[Description("Eastwards")]
East,

[Description("Westwards")]
West
}

...

Create an extension method to get a list of descriptions:

public static class Enum where T : struct
{

    /// 

    /// Gets a collection of the enum value descriptions.
    /// 
    /// 
    public static IList GetDescriptions()
    {
        List descriptions = new List();
        foreach (object enumValue in Enum.GetValues())
        {
            descriptions.Add(((Enum)enumValue).ToDescription());
        }
        return descriptions;

    }
}