What is the purpose of enum in C# .NET?

Not bad, my 5.
The article is good "slow" introduction, only Trick section does not protect against some common fallacies, but I do it in my article. Would you like to look at my Answer?
--SA

Solution 4

Please forgive me if my Answer is a bit off-topic and many a bit too advanced to you. I still think it could be very useful.

I want to reference my CodeProject article which shows some good and simple enumeration techniques many developers do not know. But more intriguing is the main topic. I may come as surprise, but C# (as well as C/C++) enumeration types are not "real" enumeration types as in some other languages!

The reason is very convincing: they do not enumerate! In .NET terms it means they do not implement the interface IEnumerable needed to enumerate using foraech. Note that some other languages do it inherently.

The article overview the ways to work around, but the main result is the enumerator build around any existing type. Also, it protects from some common fallacies related to main topic.

Please see: Enumeration Types do not Enumerate! Working around .NET and Language Limitations[^].

Good luck,

—SA

Posted 17-Feb-11 11:22am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

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Manas Bhardwaj · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T03:25:00

This [^]is what MSDN says about enum is c#.

When to use Enumerations[^]

According to this article:
'The benefits of using enumerations include:

Reduces errors caused by transposing or mistyping numbers.

Makes it easy to change values in the future.

Makes code easier to read, which means it is less likely that errors will creep into it.

Ensures forward compatibility. With enumerations, your code is less likely to fail if in the future someone changes the values corresponding to the member names.'

Nish Nishant · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-17T03:24:00

Solution 1

Try this nearly 10 year old article I wrote on the topic:

Enums and Structs in C#[^]

Also see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sbbt4032(v=VS.100).aspx[^]

One of the most common uses is to avoid magic numbers and instead to use a typesafe readable name that identifies a value.

Posted 17-Feb-11 3:24am

Nish Nishant

Updated 17-Feb-11 3:25am

v3

Comments

Manas Bhardwaj 17-Feb-11 9:39am

+10 : 5 for answer + 5 for your article :)

Nish Nishant 17-Feb-11 9:44am

Thank you :-)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 17-Feb-11 18:23pm

Pretty good introductory material. I voted 5 for Answer and the article.
Did you see my Article "Enumeration Types do not Enumerate! Working around .NET and Language Limitations" (see my answer)? Maybe not quite to OP level, but you may find it just intriguing.
--SA

Nish Nishant 17-Feb-11 19:21pm

Thanks SA, yes I've seen it before but have not got a chance to read it in full. I will do so at some time :-)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 17-Feb-11 19:46pm

Thank you, this is a series of 3 works; next one is on human-readable presentation (UI) and localization, last on on Enumeration-based command line; last one is most popular, first one I think most interesting.
--SA

What is the purpose of enum in C# .NET?

4 solutions

Solution 2

Solution 3