Question

Currently, Enum.Parse supports only the comma as the value separator, so that

MemberOne,MemberThree

will be correctly parsed but

MemberOne|MemberThree

won’t. Is there any way to force Enum.Parse to accept other characters as the separator (for example, the ‘|‘) without using String.Replace on the expression parameter?

Answer 1

You could add your own custom helper method for the Enum class like this:

public static class EnumHelpers
{
    public static object Parse(Type enumType, string value, char separator)
    {
        return Enum.Parse(enumType, value.Replace(separator, ','));
    }
}

Then use it like this:

myEnum x = (myEnum)EnumHelpers.Parse(typeof(myEnum), "a|b", '|');

I'm not really sure if this meets your criteria - it's still using string.Replace, but you don't have to use it in the parameter.

You could also have a method like this which could accept multiple options without specifying the separator on each call:

private const char[] additionalSeparators = new char[] { '|', '$', '#' };

public static object Parse(Type enumType, string input)
{
    string val = input;
    foreach(char c in additionalSeparators)
    {
        val = val.Replace(c, ',');
    }
    return Enum.Parse(enumType, val);
}

which could be called like this:

myEnum x = (myEnum)EnumHelpers.Parse(typeof(myEnum), "a|b");