Question

I currently have the following code:

public enum FieldType
{
    Int,
    Year,
    String,
    DateTime
}
public enum DataType
{
    Int,
    String,
    DateTime
}

I would like to have an extension method for each so that I can do something like this:

FieldType fType = FieldType.Year;
DataType dType = DataType.Int;

fType.Equals(dType); //If fType is an Int/Year, and dType is an Int it should return true
dType.Equals(fType); //If dType is an Int, and fType is an Int/Year it should be true

Is there a way to create a .Equals extension, so that this will work out?

Answer 1

As Jon said, reusing a framework’s method name is not a very good idea.

But you could easily do something like that :

public static class Extensions
{
    public static bool IsEquivalentTo(this FieldType field, DataType data)
    {
        return data.ToString() == field.ToString();
    }

    public static bool IsEquivalentTo(this DataType data, FieldType field)
    {
        return data.ToString() == field.ToString();
    }
}

or even better :

public static class Extensions
{
    public static bool IsEquivalentTo(this Enum e1, Enum e2)
    {
        return e1.ToString() == e2.ToString();
    }
}