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Rany
Rany

Reputation: 55

Delete and add values to enum .NET

I've searched a lot but couldn't find how to delete and add values from/to enum in .NET

Let's say we have enum like this:

Public Enum Coordinates
x
y
z
End Enum

What I need is the enum to become like this:

Public Enum Coordinates
x
y
End Enum

Any help will be appreciated.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3890

Answers (2)

György Kőszeg
György Kőszeg

Reputation: 18013

If you have heard something about "turning some values in enums on and off", then it must have been about flags enums. Which means, you can do the following:

[Flags]
public enum Coordinates
{
    None = 0;
    X = 1;  // binary 001
    Y = 2;  // binary 010
    Z = 4;  // binary 100
}

Now you can use it like this:

Coordinates enabledCoordinates = Coordinates.X | Coordinates.Y; // binary 011
Console.WriteLine(enabledCoordinates); // displays: X, Y (without Flags, it would display 3)

And then adding and removing can be performed by binary AND and OR operations:

// Adding Z coordinate: by binary OR
enabledCoordinates |= Coordinates.Z;

// Removing Z coordinate: by binary AND of the negated Z
enabledCoordinates &= ~Coordinates.Z;

Checking if a coordinate is added can be performed by binary AND:

// checking if Z flag is set
if ((enabledCoordinates & Coordinates.Z) != Coordinates.None)
    Console.WriteLine("Z is turned on");

Upvotes: 2

Markus Safar
Markus Safar

Reputation: 6580

It is not possible (and not the intend) to modify Enumerations at runtime, you should definitly use the correct data structure for this. E.g. like Dimitry suggested an Dictionary<Key, Value>

Upvotes: 4

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