Parse a string to an Enum value in VB.NET

Question

How can I parse a string in VB.NET to enum value?

Example I have this enum:

Public Enum Gender
    NotDefined
    Male
    Female
End Enum

how can I convert a string "Male" to the Gender enum's Male value?

score 153 · Accepted Answer · answered May 12 '09 at 10:39

153

Dim val = DirectCast([Enum].Parse(GetType(Gender), "Male"), Gender)

answered May 12 '09 at 10:39

Kamarey

what if i don't know the type and wanted to convert generally. in this example you specified `Male`. i saved the enum value in database and am trying to get it back. in this case i might not know thw actual value that i saved since am converting toString – Smith Jul 09 '11 at 13:50
You should save the related Enum type with the value, say "Namespaces.EnumName". After you can use reflection to get the Type object by name: Dim t = Type.GetType("Namespaces.EnumName") and pass the 't' instead of 'GetType(Gender)'. Also you will have to cast the result value. To do this you must know the specific enum type while writing code. – Kamarey Jul 10 '11 at 14:57
2

In .NET 4.0 the syntax is simply: `Parse(enumType As System.Type, value As String) As Object` – motto Jul 20 '11 at 16:04
2

He's asking for the value of the enum, but this snippet just returns an Enum object based from the string. Should be: `DirectCast([Enum].Parse(GetType(Gender), "Male"), Integer)` – ChatGPT Oct 18 '12 at 07:52

score 19 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '09 at 10:36

19

answered May 12 '09 at 10:36

Anton Gogolev

There is only Parse() method. Not sure where is the Enum.TryParse() method? – David.Chu.ca Sep 15 '09 at 03:03
11

@David: Enum.TryParse() is available in .NET 4 – Alex Angas Feb 24 '10 at 02:52
1

correct link, can't edit the answer as it is less then 30 characters: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd783499.aspx – Daniël Tulp Dec 23 '13 at 13:43

ChatGPT · Answer 3 · 2012-10-18T07:48:51.000

5

how can I convert a string "Male" to the Gender enum's Male value?

The accepted solution returns an Enum object. To return the value you want this solution:

dim MyGender as string = "Male"
dim Value as integer
Value = DirectCast([Enum].Parse(GetType(Gender), MyGender), Integer)

Can also do it this way:

value = cInt([enum].Parse(GetType(Gender), MyGender))

edited Oct 18 '12 at 07:48

answered Oct 18 '12 at 07:33

ChatGPT

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 20 '17 at 19:16

1

If you want the parse to be case insensitive, you can use the following:

[Enum].Parse(Gender, DirectCast(MyGender, String), True)

This will handle dim MyGender as string = "Male" or dim MyGender as string = "male"

answered Nov 20 '17 at 19:16

e.gad

4 Answers4