How to assign string values to enums and use that value in a switch

Question

I found that the best way for me to do this is by using the System.ComponentModel.DescriptionAttribute attribute on the enum values.

Here is an example:

using System.ComponentModel;

public enum ActionCode
{
    [Description("E")]
    Edit,
    [Description("D")]
    Delete,
    [Description("R")]
    Restore
}

Then, to use it, create an extension method on a static class like so:

Edit: I rewrote the method to include a great suggestion from Laurie Dickinson so that the method returns the name of the enum value when there is no Description attribute. I also refactored the method to try to improve functionality. It now works for all Enums without using IConvertible.

public static class Extensions
{
    public static string GetDescription(this Enum e)
    {
        var attribute =
            e.GetType()
                .GetTypeInfo()
                .GetMember(e.ToString())
                .FirstOrDefault(member => member.MemberType == MemberTypes.Field)
                .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false)
                .SingleOrDefault()
                as DescriptionAttribute;

        return attribute?.Description ?? e.ToString();
    }
}

So, to get the string associated with our enum above, we could use the following code:

using Your.Extension.Method.Namespace;

...

var action = ActionCode.Edit;
var actionDescription = action.GetDescription();

// Value of actionDescription will be "E".

Here is another sample Enum:

public enum TestEnum
{
    [Description("This is test 1")]
    Test1,
    Test2,
    [Description("This is test 3")]
    Test3

}

Here is the code to see the description:

var test = TestEnum.Test2;
var testDescription = test.GetDescription();
test = TestEnum.Test3;
var testDescription2 = test.GetDescription();

Results will be:

testDescription: "Test2"
testDescription2: "This is test 3"

I wanted to go ahead and post the generic method as it is much more useful. It prevents you from having to write a custom extension for all of your enums.

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