Parse string to enum type

Question

I have an enum type like this as an example:

public Enum MyEnum {
    enum1, enum2, enum3 };

I\'ll read a string from config file. What I n

Answer 1

private enum MyEnum
{
    Enum1 = 1, Enum2 = 2, Enum3 = 3, Enum4 = 4, Enum5 = 5, Enum6 = 6, 
    Enum7 = 7, Enum8 = 8, Enum9 = 9, Enum10 = 10
}

private static Object ParseEnum<T>(string s)
{
    try
    {
        var o = Enum.Parse(typeof (T), s);
        return (T)o;
    }
    catch(ArgumentException)
    {
        return null;
    }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   Console.WriteLine(ParseEnum<MyEnum>("Enum11"));
   Console.WriteLine(ParseEnum<MyEnum>("Enum1"));
   Console.WriteLine(ParseEnum<MyEnum>("Enum6").GetType());
   Console.WriteLine(ParseEnum<MyEnum>("Enum10"));
}

OUTPUT:

    //This line is empty as Enum11 is not there and function returns a null
Enum1
TestApp.Program+MyEnum
Enum10
Press any key to continue . . .

Answer 2

If you're using .NET 3.5 (or even 2.0, if you trim out the extension method), I've had great luck with the techniques in this article:

Enumerations and Strings - Stop the Madness!

EDIT: Domain is gone and is now a link farm. I pulled the code (slightly modified and added to over time) from our codebase at work, which you can now find here:

https://gist.github.com/1305566

Answer 3

To return Enum by string, if contains:

    public static T GetEnum<T>(string s)
    {
        Array arr = Enum.GetValues(typeof(T));
        foreach (var x in arr)
        {
            if (x.ToString().Contains(s))
                return (T)x;
        }
        return default(T);
    }

Answer 4

You can use TryParse if you want to avoid using try/catch.

MyEnum eVal;
if (Enum.TryParse("ENUM2", true, out eVal)){
    // now eVal is the enumeration element: enum2 
}
//unable to parse. You can log the error, exit, redirect, etc...

I modified the selected answer a little bit. I hope you like it.

public static class EnumUtils
{
    public static Nullable<T> Parse<T>(string input) where T : struct
    {
        //since we cant do a generic type constraint
        if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Generic Type 'T' must be an Enum");
        }

        int intVal;
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(input) && !int.TryParse(input, out intVal))
        {
            T eVal;
            if (Enum.TryParse(input, true, out eVal))
            {
                return eVal;
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

Answer 5

What about something like:

public static class EnumUtils
{
    public static Nullable<T> Parse<T>(string input) where T : struct
    {
        //since we cant do a generic type constraint
        if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Generic Type 'T' must be an Enum");
        }
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(input))
        {
            if (Enum.GetNames(typeof(T)).Any(
                  e => e.Trim().ToUpperInvariant() == input.Trim().ToUpperInvariant()))
            {
                return (T)Enum.Parse(typeof(T), input, true);
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

Used as:

MyEnum? value = EnumUtils.Parse<MyEnum>("foo");

(Note: old version used try/catch around Enum.Parse)

Answer 6

I have a TryParseName method in UnconstrainedMelody, a library for delegate and enum utility methods which uses "inexpressible" constraints via some postbuild trickery. (Code using the library doesn't need a postbuild, just to be clear.)

You would use it like this:

Foo foo;
bool parsed = Enums.TryParseName<Foo>(name, out foo);

I don't currently have a case-insensitive version, but I could easily introduce one if you wanted. Note that this doesn't try to parse numbers e.g. "12" like the built-in version does, nor does it try to parse comma-separated lists of flags. I may add the flags version later on, but I can't see much point in the numeric version.

This is done without boxing and without execution time type checking. Having the constraint is really handy :)

Please let me know if you'd find a case-insensitive parse useful...