Question

If I have an enum like so:

enum Beer
{
    Bud = 10,
    Stella = 20,
    Unknown
}

Why does it not throw an exception when casting an int that is outside of these values to a type of Beer?

For example the following code doesn’t throw an exception, it outputs ’50’ to the console:

int i = 50;
var b = (Beer) i;

Console.WriteLine(b.ToString());

I find this strange…can anyone clarify?

Answer 1

Taken from Confusion with parsing an Enum

This was a decision on the part of the people who created .NET. An enum is backed by another value type (int, short, byte, etc), and so it can actually have any value that is valid for those value types.

I personally am not a fan of the way this works, so I made a series of utility methods:

/// <summary>
/// Utility methods for enum values. This static type will fail to initialize 
/// (throwing a <see cref="TypeInitializationException"/>) if
/// you try to provide a value that is not an enum.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">An enum type. </typeparam>
public static class EnumUtil<T>
    where T : struct, IConvertible // Try to get as much of a static check as we can.
{
    // The .NET framework doesn't provide a compile-checked
    // way to ensure that a type is an enum, so we have to check when the type
    // is statically invoked.
    static EnumUtil()
    {
        // Throw Exception on static initialization if the given type isn't an enum.
        Require.That(typeof (T).IsEnum, () => typeof(T).FullName + " is not an enum type.");
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// In the .NET Framework, objects can be cast to enum values which are not
    /// defined for their type. This method provides a simple fail-fast check
    /// that the enum value is defined, and creates a cast at the same time.
    /// Cast the given value as the given enum type.
    /// Throw an exception if the value is not defined for the given enum type.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
    /// <param name="enumValue"></param>
    /// <exception cref="InvalidCastException">
    /// If the given value is not a defined value of the enum type.
    /// </exception>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static T DefinedCast(object enumValue)

    {
        if (!System.Enum.IsDefined(typeof(T), enumValue))
            throw new InvalidCastException(enumValue + " is not a defined value for enum type " +
                                           typeof (T).FullName);
        return (T) enumValue;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// 
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="enumValue"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static T Parse(string enumValue)
    {
        var parsedValue = (T)System.Enum.Parse(typeof (T), enumValue);
        //Require that the parsed value is defined
        Require.That(parsedValue.IsDefined(), 
            () => new ArgumentException(string.Format("{0} is not a defined value for enum type {1}", 
                enumValue, typeof(T).FullName)));
        return parsedValue;
    }

    public static bool IsDefined(T enumValue)
    {
        return System.Enum.IsDefined(typeof (T), enumValue);
    }

}


public static class EnumExtensions
{
    public static bool IsDefined<T>(this T enumValue)
        where T : struct, IConvertible
    {
        return EnumUtil<T>.IsDefined(enumValue);
    }
}

This way, I can say:

if(!sEnum.IsDefined()) throw new Exception(...);

… or:

EnumUtil<Stooge>.Parse(s); // throws an exception if s is not a defined value.

Edit

Beyond the explanation given above, you have to realize that the .NET version of Enum follows a more C-inspired pattern than a Java-inspired one. This makes it possible to have “Bit Flag” enums which can use binary patterns to determine whether a particular “flag” is active in an enum value. If you had to define every possible combination of flags (i.e. MondayAndTuesday, MondayAndWednesdayAndThursday), these would be extremely tedious. So having the capacity to use undefined enum values can be really handy. It just requires a little extra work when you want a fail-fast behavior on enum types that don’t leverage these sorts of tricks.