Is it ok to cast enum to int

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Hi, is it ok to cast int to enum like this:

C#

itemID = (MyEnumType)results.value("itemID").toInt();

where itemID is of type MyEnumType-and right hand side is integer.

Posted 25-Feb-13 20:40pm

Matra Divat

Updated 8-Dec-19 9:14am

v3

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3 solutions

Solution 3

This is one of the unfortunate features of enums. There is no elegant conversion from 'anything' to enum. The way you are doing it looks ugly but is pretty much the only way besides a big nasty switch() statement that duplicates all of the enum values.

Posted 26-Feb-13 16:59pm

H.Brydon

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Stefan_Lang · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-26T02:53:00

For the compiler it is ok. Although you might want to familiarize yourself with C++11, which allows the definition of enums that are not int-based.

For good coding, it is not "ok", however: casting is almost always used as a cure for a bad choice of variable, function argument or function return type. Or else it may be a case of bad class design. If you can fix the function, variable or class to use a type that doesn't require casting, that will always be the preferred solution.

S. M. Ahasan Habib · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-25T21:05:00

Solution 1

The answer is Yes. You simply can do it as follows

C#

public enum  Country
{
    Bangladesh = 1,
    India = 2
}

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Country e = Country.Bangladesh;

    int x = (int) e;

    Country e2 = (Country) x;

    Console.ReadKey();
}

Posted 25-Feb-13 21:05pm

S. M. Ahasan Habib

Updated 25-Feb-13 21:06pm

v2

Comments

[no name] 26-Feb-13 3:38am

My enum is declared somewhere separately in a .h file so I will just cast it I suppose also as you mentioned ...