Question

I am keeping a static dictionary to map a simple integer stored in a database to an enum value.

static Dictionary<long, EModelType> AttributeIdTypeToEModelType = 
   new Dictionary<long, EModelType>()
   {
      {1, EModelType.StatStr},
      {6, EModelType.HistStr},
      {7, EModelType.HistVal}
   };

The great advantage is that I use it to directly get my enum value as the data arrive from the database.

typ = AttributeIdTypeToEModelType[i];

The usage of this system is neat, but it doesn’t look clean to me to have a static dictionary just for this.

I had no chance trying to find a cleaner way to use enumerators and overriding their values.

Any advice?

Answer 1

You don’t need a Dictionary to cast an int to the appropriate Enum type:

var type = (EModelType)yourInt;

or using Enum.ToObject:

var type = Enum.ToObject(typeof(EModelType) , yourInt);

and you can check that it exists with Enum.IsDefined:

if (! Enum.IsDefined(typeof(EModelType), yourInt)) throw new ArgumentException("Illegal type");