Question

My enum structure is this

public enum UserRole
{
    Administrator = "Administrator",
    Simple_User = "Simple User",
    Paid_User = "Paid User"
}

Now i want to read this enum value by using its name suppose

String str = UserRole.Simple_User;

it gives me “Simple User” in str instead of “Simple_User”

How we can do this???

Answer 1

You can do a friendly description like so:

public enum UserRole
    {
        [Description("Total administrator!!1!one")]
        Administrator = 1,

        [Description("This is a simple user")]
        Simple_User = 2,

        [Description("This is a paid user")]
        Paid_User = 3,
    }

And make a helper function:

 public static string GetDescription(Enum en)
        {
            Type type = en.GetType();

            MemberInfo[] info = type.GetMember(en.ToString());

            if (info != null && info.Length > 0)
            {
                object[] attrs = info[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

                if (attrs != null && attrs.Length > 0)
                {
                    return ((DescriptionAttribute)attrs[0]).Description;
                }
            }

            return en.ToString();
        }

And use it like:

string description = GetDescription(UserRole.Administrator);