Question

If I have a class with an enum member and I want to be able to represent situations where this member is not defined, which is it better?

a) Declare the member as nullable in the class using nullable types. E.g.:

public SomeEnum? myEnum;

b) Add a default, ‘unknown’ value to the enumeration. E.g.:

public enum SomeEnum {
    Unknown,
    SomeValueA,
    SomeValueB,
    SomeValueC,
}

I can’t really see any major pros/cons either way; but perhaps one is preferable over the other?

Answer 1

Definitely use a nullable value type – that’s what they’re for. It explicitly states your intention. It also means you can use Enum.IsDefined (or the equivalent from Unconstrained Melody if you want generic type safety) to easily determine whether a particular value is a real value without worrying about the “fake” one too.