Question

If I have duplicate values in a C# enum, saying

enum MyE {
  value1 = 1,
  value2 = 2,
  valued = 1
}

What should be the values of the following strings?

MyE N = (MyE)1;
string V1 = N.ToString();
string V2 = GetName(MyE, 1);

Is it true that V1 and V2 must contain the same values?
What these values should be?

I haven’t found anything in MSDN or here concerning such a «dereferencing» of enums with duplicates, point me to a link, please, if I missed that.

Answer 1

Experimentation shows that:

V1 = “value1”

and

V2 = “value1”

However, this isn’t guaranteed. The MSDN page on Enum.GetName states:

If multiple enumeration members have the same underlying value, the GetName method guarantees that it will return the name of one of those enumeration members. However, it does not guarantee that it will always return the name of the same enumeration member. As a result, when multiple enumeration members have the same value, your application code should never depend on the method returning a particular member’s name.