.NET: What attribute would you use to describe an Enum value?

Question

Lets say you have this enum:

Public Enum ApplicationStatus
    <Foo("Active")> Active = 1
    <Foo("Inactive")> Inactive = 2
    <Foo("Retired")> Retired = 3
    <Foo("In Development")> InDevelopment = 4
End Enum

What attribute should I use in place of Foo for plain-text descriptions of the Enum?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 27 '10 at 00:06

3

I use Description()

[Description("The image associated with the control"),Category("Appearance")] 
 public Image MyImage {
    get {
       // Insert code here.
       return image1;
    }
    set {
       // Insert code here.
    }
 }

answered Jul 27 '10 at 00:06

hunter

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

1

In addition to hunter's answer, you might want to check out this extension method to retrieve the description easily

edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

Community

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answered Jul 27 '10 at 00:20

Thomas Levesque

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Paul Farry · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-27T03:18:39.627

1

I've used Description for mine, but only in the cases when the enumeration itself needs to display very differently, otherwise it just displays the String of the Enum Value.

I've also use a method for some where it checks the case of each character in the Enum item and if it's an uppercase character after the 1st, it adds a space before the character.

Public Enum ApplicationStatus
    Active = 1
    Inactive = 2
    Retired = 3
    InDevelopment = 4
    <Description("Radical Display Name")> Radical = 5 
End Enum

edited Jul 27 '10 at 03:18

answered Jul 27 '10 at 00:20

Paul Farry

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I do the same thing for datagrid columns, though I look for a capital followed by a lower case. That way "IOMode" becomes "IO Mode" instead of "I O Mode". – Jonathan Allen Jul 27 '10 at 02:40

.NET: What attribute would you use to describe an Enum value?

3 Answers3