String arrays indexed into with the enumvalue gives you the description of the value.
It’s trivial to add to it. If you wanted to you could write it as a simple function or something. either way your program code size will increase as some constant + the number of enum entries you have.

k + n

space complexity is thus linear space: k + n = O(k + n) = O(n)
time complexity for a lookup is constant time: O(1)

but hey, that’s just me. We don’t get fancy for each statements and dictionaries and all that hat on the bare metal of microprocessors and microcontrollers. Heck, you gotta even specify what address in memory to store your crap at. So this was my gut instinct here.

I’d like to hear one good reason not to use it for high-level programming.

http://www.objectreference.net/post/enum-to-friendly-string-extension-method.aspx

Oh LOL, this entry is making me laugh my socks off.

Go on Son, reflect the mirror..

[System.SerializableAttribute()]
public enum TestEnum
{
value1,

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("hi")]
value2
}

Then in code:

public static string ToStringUsingXmlEnumAttribute( Enum value )
{
if ( value == null ) throw new ArgumentNullException( “value” );

XmlEnumAttribute[ ] attribs = (XmlEnumAttribute[ ])value.GetType( ).GetField( value.ToString( ) ).GetCustomAttributes( typeof( XmlEnumAttribute ), true );

return ( attribs.Length > 0 ) ? attribs[ 0 ].Name : value.ToString( );
}

RE: formatting
One option might be to use an underscore to seperate “words” and do a simple .Replace(“_”,” “) when the displayed version of the enum is required. That way upper/lower case doesn’t play into formatting.

Use reflection to populate the list …
Also for nice Spaced words write a string function that finds the upper case words and adds a space … like … “CoolComment” become “Cool Comment”. Why add the attributes, another hassle.

Also name your enums in a way that they come as nice words