Search for a string in Enum and return the Enum

Question

I have an enumeration   public enum MyColours       Red      Green      Blue      Yellow      Fuchsia      Aqua      Orange     and I have a string   string colour    Red     I want to be able to return   MyColours Red   from   public MyColours GetColour string colour      So far i have   public MyColours GetColours string colour        string   colours   Enum GetNames typeof MyColours        int      values    Enum GetValues typeof MyColours        int i      for int i   0  i  lt  colours Length  i                  if colour Equals colours i   StringComparison Ordinal              break            int value   values i          I know all the information about the matched enumeration        but how do i convert this information into returning a        MyColour enumeration      As you can see  I m a bit stuck   Is there anyway to select an enumerator by value   Something like   MyColour 2     would result in  MyColour Green

User · Answer

You might also want to check out some of the suggestions in this blog post: My new little friend, Enum<T>

The post describes a way to create a very simple generic helper class which enables you to avoid the ugly casting syntax inherent with Enum.Parse - instead you end up writing something like this in your code:

MyColours colour = Enum<MyColours>.Parse(stringValue);

Or check out some of the comments in the same post which talk about using an extension method to achieve similar.

User · Answer

check out System Enum Parse     enum Colors  Red  Green  Blue      your code  Colors color    Colors System Enum Parse typeof Colors    Green

User · Answer

MyColours Enum Parse typeof MyColours    red   true      MyColours Red  int   MyColours Enum Parse typeof MyColours    red   true       0

User · Answer

var color    Enum Parse lt Colors gt   Green

User · Answer

Given the latest and greatest changes to  NET    Core  and C  7  here is the best solution   var ignoreCase   true  Enum TryParse  red   ignoreCase   out MyColours colour     colour variable can be used within the scope of Enum TryParse

User · Answer

I marked OregonGhost s answer  1  then I tried to use the iteration and realised it wasn t quite right because Enum GetNames returns strings  You want Enum GetValues   public MyColours GetColours string colour         foreach  MyColours mc in Enum GetValues typeof MyColours        if  mc ToString      surveySystem         return mc      return MyColors Default

User · Answer

One thing that might be useful to you  besides the already valid good answers provided so far  is the StringEnum idea provided here  With this you can define your enumerations as classes  the examples are in vb net        lt  StringEnumRegisteredOnly    DebuggerStepThrough      ImmutableObject True   Public NotInheritable Class   eAuthenticationMethod    Inherits StringEnumBase Of   eAuthenticationMethod   Private Sub New ByVal StrValue As String    MyBase New StrValue     End Sub   lt  Description  Use User Password Authentication   gt  Public Shared ReadOnly UsernamePassword As New eAuthenticationMethod  UP        lt  Description  Use Windows Authentication   gt  Public Shared ReadOnly WindowsAuthentication As New eAuthenticationMethod  W            End Class   And now you could use the this class as you would use an enum  eAuthenticationMethod WindowsAuthentication and this would be essentially like assigning the  W  the logical value of WindowsAuthentication  inside the enum  and if you were to view this value from a properties window  or something else that uses the System ComponentModel Description property  you would get  Use Windows Authentication    I ve been using this for a long time now and it makes the code more clear in intent

User · Answer

All you need is Enum Parse

User · Answer

You can cast the int to an enum   MyColour 2   There is also the option of Enum Parse   MyColour Enum Parse typeof MyColour    Red

User · Answer

You can use Enum Parse to get an enum value from the name  You can iterate over all values with Enum GetNames  and you can just cast an int to an enum to get the enum value from the int value   Like this  for example   public MyColours GetColours string colour        foreach  MyColours mc in Enum GetNames typeof MyColours              if  mc ToString   Contains colour                 return mc                      return MyColours Red     Default value     or   public MyColours GetColours string colour        return  MyColours Enum Parse typeof MyColours   colour  true      true   ignoreCase     The latter will throw an ArgumentException if the value is not found  you may want to catch it inside the function and return the default value

User · Answer

class EnumStringToInt    to search for a string in enum       enum Numbers one two hree       static void Main                 Numbers num   Numbers one     converting enum to string         string str   num ToString              Console WriteLine str           string str1    four           string   getnames    string   Enum GetNames typeof Numbers            int   getnum    int   Enum GetValues typeof Numbers            try                       for  int i   0  i  lt   getnum Length  i                                  if  str1 Equals getnames i                                          Numbers num1    Numbers Enum Parse typeof Numbers   str1                       Console WriteLine  string found  0    num1                                                     catch  Exception ex                        Console WriteLine  Value not found    ex

User · Answer

As mentioned in previous answers  you can cast directly to the underlying datatype  int -  enum type  or parse  string -  enum type    but beware - there is no  TryParse for enums  so you WILL need a try catch block around the parse to catch failures

[c#] Search for a string in Enum and return the Enum

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