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c#dictionaryenums
Offir
Offir

Reputation: 3491

Convert enum to Dictionary<int,string> but string is the description attribute

I try to convert an enum to Dictionary int is the value and string is the description of the value.

I already have a function that gets the enum description by it's value but I don't how to use it with the enum iteration I have:

public static IDictionary<int, string> ConvertEnumToDictionary<K>()
        {
            Dictionary<int, string> mydic = new Dictionary<int, string>(); 
            foreach (K foo in Enum.GetValues(typeof(K)))
            {
                //???
                mydic.Add((int)foo, GetEnumDescription(foo));
            } 
        }

public static string GetEnumDescription(Enum value)
    {
        // Get the Description attribute value for the enum value
        FieldInfo fi = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());
        DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])fi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

        if (attributes.Length > 0)
            return attributes[0].Description;
        else
            return value.ToString();
    }

  public enum Lu_LanguageTypes
        {
            [Description("Hebrew")]
            he = 1,
            [Description("Englishj")]
            en = 2,
            [Description("Spanish")]
            es = 3
        }

Upvotes: 1

Views: 196

Answers (1)

Pavel Anikhouski
Pavel Anikhouski

Reputation: 23298

You can modify ConvertEnumToDictionary method a little bit and apply where K : Enum generic constraint (available from C# 7.3) and cast Enum value to K before passing to GetEnumDescription method

public static IDictionary<int, string> ConvertEnumToDictionary<K>() where K : Enum
{
    var mydic = new Dictionary<int, string>();
    foreach (var foo in Enum.GetValues(typeof(K)))
    {
        mydic.Add((int)foo, GetEnumDescription((K)foo));
    }

    return mydic;
}

Example of the usage, which gives a dictionary with 3 key-value pairs

var result = ConvertEnumToDictionary<Lu_LanguageTypes>();

Another option is to add constraint to IConvertible interface as well (since Enum type implements it) and avoid casting 

public static IDictionary<int, string> ConvertEnumToDictionary<K>() where K : Enum, IConvertible
{
    var mydic = new Dictionary<int, string>();
    foreach (K foo in Enum.GetValues(typeof(K)))
    {
        mydic.Add(foo.ToInt32(null), GetEnumDescription(foo));
    }

    return mydic;
}

Upvotes: 2

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