Question

How can I declare an enum that has strings for values?

private enum breakout {            
    page = "String1",
    column = "String2",
    pagenames = "String3",
    row = "String4"
}

Answer 1

As others have said, no you cannot.

You can do static classes like so:

internal static class Breakout {
    public static readonly string page="String1";
    public static readonly string column="String2";
    public static readonly string pagenames="String3";
    public static readonly string row="String4";

    // Or you could initialize in static constructor
    static Breakout() {
        //row = string.Format("String{0}", 4);
    }
}

Or

internal static class Breakout {
    public const string page="String1";
    public const string column="String2";
    public const string pagenames="String3";
    public const string row="String4";
}

Using readonly, you can actually assign the value in a static constructor. When using const, it must be a fixed string.

Or assign a DescriptionAttribute to enum values, like here.