Storing Enums as strings in MongoDB

Question

Is there a way to store Enums as string names rather than ordinal values?

Example:

Imagine I\'ve got this enum:

public enum Gender
{
    Fema         


        

Answer 1

You can customize the class map for the class that contains the enum and specify that the member be represented by a string. This will handle both the serialization and deserialization of the enum.

if (!MongoDB.Bson.Serialization.BsonClassMap.IsClassMapRegistered(typeof(Person)))
      {
        MongoDB.Bson.Serialization.BsonClassMap.RegisterClassMap<Person>(cm =>
         {
           cm.AutoMap();
           cm.GetMemberMap(c => c.Gender).SetRepresentation(BsonType.String);

         });
      }

I am still looking for a way to specify that enums be globally represented as strings, but this is the method that I am currently using.

Answer 2

I ended up assigning values to enum items, as suggested by Chris Smith in a comment:

I'd avoid it. The string value takes up way more space than an integer. I would however, if persistence is involved give deterministic values to each item in your enum so Female = 1, Male = 2 so if the enum is added to later or the order of items changed that you don't end up with problems.

Not exactly what I was looking for but it seems there's no other way around.

Answer 3

using MongoDB.Bson;
using MongoDB.Bson.Serialization.Attributes;

using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Converters;

public class Person
{
    [JsonConverter(typeof(StringEnumConverter))]  // JSON.Net
    [BsonRepresentation(BsonType.String)]         // Mongo
    public Gender Gender { get; set; }
}