Question

Well the problem is that I have this enum, BUT I don’t want the combobox to show the values of the enum. This is the enum:

public enum Mode
    {
        [Description("Display active only")]
        Active,
        [Description("Display selected only")]
        Selected,
        [Description("Display active and selected")]
        ActiveAndSelected
    }

So in the ComboBox instead of displaying Active, Selected or ActiveAndSelected, I want to display the DescriptionProperty for each value of the enum. I do have an extension method called GetDescription() for the enum:

public static string GetDescription(this Enum enumObj)
        {
            FieldInfo fieldInfo =
                enumObj.GetType().GetField(enumObj.ToString());

            object[] attribArray = fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(false);

            if (attribArray.Length == 0)
            {
                return enumObj.ToString();
            }
            else
            {
                DescriptionAttribute attrib =
                    attribArray[0] as DescriptionAttribute;
                return attrib.Description;
            }
        }

So is there a way I can bind the enum to the ComboBox AND show it’s content with the GetDescription extension method?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I like the way you think. But GetCustomAttributes uses reflection. What is that going to do to your performance?

Check out this post:
WPF – Displaying enums in ComboBox control
http://www.infosysblogs.com/microsoft/2008/09/wpf_displaying_enums_in_combob.html