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First Posted 6 Jun 2003
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Mapping Text to Enum entries

By | 6 Jun 2003 | Article
Attaching a description to each entry in an enum.

Sample Image - EnumWithDescription.png

Introduction

While porting old C code to C#, I stumbled across lots of huge arrays which mapped constants to strings. While looking for the C# way of doing this, I discovered custom attributes and reflection.

How is it done?

Append a Description attribute to each enum entry:

private enum MyColors
{
   [Description("yuk!")]       LightGreen    = 0x012020,
   [Description("nice :-)")]   VeryDeepPink  = 0x123456,
   [Description("so what")]    InvisibleGray = 0x456730,
   [Description("no comment")] DeepestRed    = 0xfafafa,
   [Description("I give up")]  PitchBlack    = 0xffffff,
}

To access the description from code, the following function is called:

public static string GetDescription(Enum value)
{
   FieldInfo fi= value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString()); 
   DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = 
         (DescriptionAttribute[])fi.GetCustomAttributes(
         typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
   return (attributes.Length>0)?attributes[0].Description:value.ToString();
}

Without the following using declaration, the code will not compile.

using System.ComponentModel;        
using System.Reflection;

Benefits

Instead of having constants and huge arrays all over the code, the above solution keeps declarations and descriptions nicely together.

History

I've only found out by accident that the framework already provides a DescriptionAttribute class.

I built the first version with my own custom attribute and got conflicts when I started using the ComponentModel namespace.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

Reto Ravasio



Switzerland Switzerland

Member



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GeneralMy vote of 5 Pinmemberlendres7:14 3 Apr '12  
GeneralMy vote of 5 PinmemberDorofejev23:44 19 Dec '11  
QuestionHow to use with dataset / tableadapter PinmemberSaelen Kenny0:01 8 Nov '09  
QuestionQuery regarding description Tag in Enum PinmemberNITINKADAM5:14 24 Nov '08  
GeneralAwesome - thanks! Pinmember9355:48 22 Jun '07  
GeneralDifferent versions for speed improvements Pinmemberclementgatin11:37 12 Mar '07  
GeneralThanks again PinprotectorMarc Clifton3:39 15 Oct '06  
GeneralSolution for C / C++ PinmemberJimmyO9:56 5 May '05  
GeneralRe: Solution for C / C++ PinsitebuilderUwe Keim19:53 10 Apr '06  
Questionwhy??? Pinmemberkoo910:53 18 Jan '05  
AnswerRe: why??? PinmemberReto Ravasio8:36 19 Jan '05  
QuestionWhat about Flags? PinmemberSpliffy734:22 22 Mar '04  
AnswerRe: What about Flags? PinmemberJSpens7:50 14 Aug '07  
AnswerRe: What about Flags? Pinmemberfrinkfree12:55 11 Nov '08  
GeneralAutoDoc PinsussDave Miller17:50 4 Feb '04  
GeneralI liked this PinmemberPalladino2:39 26 Aug '03  
QuestionWhat About using the System Enum Pinmembervbnetuk22:10 25 Jun '03  
AnswerRe: What About using the System Enum PinmemberReto Ravasio1:04 4 Jul '03  
GeneralRe: What About using the System Enum Pinmembervbnetuk21:05 6 Jul '03  
GeneralRe: What About using the System Enum PinmemberReto Ravasio4:47 7 Jul '03  
GeneralRe: What About using the System Enum Pinmemberdevaulr2:40 6 Nov '03  
GeneralRe: What About using the System Enum Pinmemberdatavalue3:06 19 Oct '05  
AnswerRe: What About using the System Enum PinmemberConradC8:22 1 Feb '05  
They are two different things if I understand your message correctly. Just like property name and property description are two different attributes of a property.
 
Enum name is more useful for developers and compilers. It is not practically useful for display to end user since it has all the naming limits and is not localizable.
 
Just like the other comment from other thread, it would be nice to have this attribute to use resources instead of hard coded string. Also performance would be a concern since it uses reflection alot. How about caching the result from GetDescription static method?
 
Just my 2 cents
Conrad:->
GeneralMultilingual PinsitebuilderUwe Keim21:36 7 Jun '03  
GeneralRe: Multilingual PineditorHeath Stewart5:07 27 Oct '03  

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