Question

I’m looking for a way to pass different options as a parameter to a method.
Let’s assume that a user can choose any or all of 6 options or any subset of them.
So he could choose all options, only option 1, 2 & 4, only option 1, 3, 5 & 6 etc…

How do I pass this around effectively?

I was thinking of using an Enum since you can do bitwise additions, but I’m missing the next pieces of the puzzle to go from there:

Could my method then become something like:

public void Foo(byte selectedOptions)
{
   // How do I check whether an option has been selected??
   if (selectedOptions >= Option.Whatever) DoThis();
}

So you see I’m kind of stuck on the bitwise comparisons and I wonder if this is even the right way…

What I don’t want to do is:

public void Foo(bool option1Selected, bool option2Selected, etc...);

Ideas?

Answer 1

Go with enum Flags

[Flags]
public enum FlagTest
{
    None = 0x0,
    Flag1 = 0x1,
    Flag2 = 0x2,
    Flag3 = 0x4
}

For selecting multiple options use bitwise or

FlagTest testItem = FlagTest.Flag1 | FlagTest.Flag2;

To check if a flag is selected use bitwise and

if ((testItem & FlagTest.Flag1) == FlagTest.Flag1)
{
     // Do something
}