Enum ToString with user friendly strings

Question

My enum consists of the following values:

private enum PublishStatusses{
    NotCompleted,
    Completed,
    Error
};

I want to be able to

Answer 1

That other post is Java. You can't put methods in Enums in C#.

just do something like this:

PublishStatusses status = ...
String s = status.ToString();

If you want to use different display values for your enum values, you could use Attributes and Reflection.

Answer 2

I use the Description attribute from the System.ComponentModel namespace. Simply decorate the enum:

private enum PublishStatusValue
{
    [Description("Not Completed")]
    NotCompleted,
    Completed,
    Error
};

Then use this code to retrieve it:

public static string GetDescription<T>(this T enumerationValue)
    where T : struct
{
    Type type = enumerationValue.GetType();
    if (!type.IsEnum)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("EnumerationValue must be of Enum type", "enumerationValue");
    }

    //Tries to find a DescriptionAttribute for a potential friendly name
    //for the enum
    MemberInfo[] memberInfo = type.GetMember(enumerationValue.ToString());
    if (memberInfo != null && memberInfo.Length > 0)
    {
        object[] attrs = memberInfo[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

        if (attrs != null && attrs.Length > 0)
        {
            //Pull out the description value
            return ((DescriptionAttribute)attrs[0]).Description;
        }
    }
    //If we have no description attribute, just return the ToString of the enum
    return enumerationValue.ToString();
}

Answer 3

The simplest way is just to include this extension class into your project, it will work with any enum in the project:

public static class EnumExtensions
{
    public static string ToFriendlyString(this Enum code)
    {
        return Enum.GetName(code.GetType(), code);
    }
}

Usage:

enum ExampleEnum
{
    Demo = 0,
    Test = 1, 
    Live = 2
}

...

ExampleEnum ee = ExampleEnum.Live;
Console.WriteLine(ee.ToFriendlyString());

Answer 4

I created a reverse extension method to convert the description back into an enum value:

public static T ToEnumValue<T>(this string enumerationDescription) where T : struct
{
    var type = typeof(T);

    if (!type.IsEnum)
        throw new ArgumentException("ToEnumValue<T>(): Must be of enum type", "T");

    foreach (object val in System.Enum.GetValues(type))
        if (val.GetDescription<T>() == enumerationDescription)
            return (T)val;

    throw new ArgumentException("ToEnumValue<T>(): Invalid description for enum " + type.Name, "enumerationDescription");
}

Answer 5

public enum MyEnum
{
    [Description("Option One")]
    Option_One
}

public static string ToDescriptionString(this Enum This)
{
    Type type = This.GetType();

    string name = Enum.GetName(type, This);

    MemberInfo member = type.GetMembers()
        .Where(w => w.Name == name)
        .FirstOrDefault();

    DescriptionAttribute attribute = member != null
        ? member.GetCustomAttributes(true)
            .Where(w => w.GetType() == typeof(DescriptionAttribute))
            .FirstOrDefault() as DescriptionAttribute
        : null;

    return attribute != null ? attribute.Description : name;
}