Question

I have an enum, which:

• is included in my class as a property
• it represents some values from a database table (a couple of types)
• it is displayed in DropBox, so that it can be used as a filter

Now I would like to add ‘All’ (or ‘None’ for example) value to this DropBox.

How should I do this:

• add ‘All’ value to Enum?
• add ‘All’ value to DropBox, change type of my property from Enum to String
• some other option…

Answer 1

Codesleuth comment on another answer made me read the question again and here is an update.

Consider the use of a flags enumeration if you are going to have multiple combination’s. In your case it would mean that selecting any combination of types is a valid input.

[Flags]
enum MyTypes
{
    None = 0,
    One = 1,
    Two = 2,
    Three = 4,
    Four = 8,
    All = One | Two | Three | Four
}

If the user can only select one type or all the types then use a normal enumeration:

enum MyType
{
    None,
    One,
    Two,
    Three,
    Four,
    All
}