Comments on: Creating user friendly strings for enum values

By: Naz

Naz — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:38:20 +0000

I’ve done this using extension methods you can check it out here.

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

By: Your Teacher

Your Teacher — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:20:30 +0000

> I think logically.

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

Go on Son, reflect the mirror..

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:34:04 +0000

An atttibute similar to this exists in the framework: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute. To use it, it’s almost the same as your suggestion:

[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( );
}

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:24:58 +0000

Or use pseudo enums:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/DescriptiveEnum.aspx

By: superjason

superjason — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:40:56 +0000

Lots of great ideas. That’s why I love posting stuff like this!

By: Aaron Zalewski

Aaron Zalewski — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:32:37 +0000

Good post, I’ve been using enums most extensively to store the output ColumnNames of returned data.

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.

By: Shafqat Ahmed

Shafqat Ahmed — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:52:14 +0000

Why go through all the trouble?

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

By: Nathan Baulch

Nathan Baulch — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:22:13 +0000

Or even better, use a TypeConverter so that it transparently works with databinding:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/DotNetEnumsNextLevel.aspx?msg=1604037#xx1604037xx

By: Eber Irigoyen

Eber Irigoyen — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:12:47 +0000

I prefere the much simpler approach of storing the strings in the resources, which solves localization at the same time

By: Dan Rigsby

Dan Rigsby — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:36:16 +0000

What about localizing these strings? Names are usually best kept in resource files for these reasons. What might be better is to add a value for a key in a resource file as well the default name value you have defined. If there is no resource file or no item for that key, then it can display the default name.