This extension method will obtain a string representation of an enum value using its XmlEnumAttribute. If no XmlEnumAttribute is present, it falls back to enum.ToString().
public static string ToStringUsingXmlEnumAttribute<T>(this T enumValue)
where T: struct, IConvertible
{
if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
{
throw new ArgumentException("T must be an enumerated type");
}
string name;
var type = typeof(T);
var memInfo = type.GetMember(enumValue.ToString());
if (memInfo.Length == 1)
{
var attributes = memInfo[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute), false);
if (attributes.Length == 1)
{
name = ((System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute)attributes[0]).Name;
}
else
{
name = enumValue.ToString();
}
}
else
{
name = enumValue.ToString();
}
return name;
}