Question

As C# lacks support for freestanding functions, I find it hard to find a place to put conversion functions. For example, I’d like to convert an enum to a number. In C++, I would make the following freestanding function for this:

UINT32 ConvertToUint32(const MyEnum e);

How can I elegantly do this in C#? Should I make a dummy static class for holding the function, and if so, how can I find a meaningful name for it? Or should I make a partial class Convert?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Update: In retrospect, my example was not very well chosen, as there exists a default conversion between enum and int. This would be a better example:

Person ConvertToPerson(const SpecialPersonsEnum e);

Answer 1

I’d go with:

namespace ExtensionMethods
{
    public static class MyExtensions
    {
        public static int ConvertToInt(this MyEnum e)
        {
            var m;

            // ... Implementation

            return m;
        }
    }   
}

Then you’d simply use MyEnum.ConvertToInt(); The same can be done for multiple conversions all from within the same class. Extension methods are in a nutshell, damn sexy.

---

Also, Eric’s comment about Type Converters got me googling. Pretty awesome, however I’m not sure how to use them with an Enum, but for other conversions, they’re clean as a whistle to implement. Have a look here:

• http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/fritz/archive/2005/12/09/17343.aspx