Question

I have a seemingly very basic question. I’m trying to decide whether or not constants strings would really be better than enums with MyEnum.ToString() called for a high performance application.

I have a class, enum, method like this…

    Public Enum MyEnum
        MyValue1
        MyValue2
    End Enum

    Public Class MyImportantClass

            Public Sub Foo(ByVal enumerationValue As MyEnum)

            ' Some code in here that needs to do this at some point
            Dim str As String = enumerationValue.ToString()

    End Sub

    End Class

I understand enumerationValue.ToString() has some performance issues. However, another developer suggested instead of using Enums, use Constant Strings. My problem is that the method parameter is then a string, and the caller can then pass whatever he wants. Not just any string will work, obviously, so this is a run-time bug.

Public Sub Foo(ByVal enumerationValue As String)

    ' Some code in here that needs to do this at some point
    '   Dim str As String = enumerationValue

End Sub

I want the safety of the enum, but the performance of a constant. As I said, I’m looking for a way to have my cake and eat it too.

Answer 1

Stick with enum, it’s a lot more user frendly with passing as a parameter to a function. The IDE can pop-up the list of available items.

To convert your enum to string, you could have a dictionnary of (Enum, String)

or

There’s some nice articles on how to put attributes on your enum, this way you can convert it to a string.

Can I give an enum an attribute in VB.NET (like I can do in Java)?

http://weblogs.asp.net/stefansedich/archive/2008/03/12/enum-with-string-values-in-c.aspx