Enum type from (e.g.) string???

[Jhd.Honza]

Well, let's say I would like to do something like this:

 enum Fruit {Apple, Orange, Banana}
 enum Vegetable {Onion, Carrot, Cabbage}

 string GetItemName(int Index, string category)
 {
     return ((category)Index).ToString();
 }
[/b]

I hope this illustrates the problem...

I need to return "Cabbage" passing 2,"Vegetable" to the function

[Scott Penner]

Sorry I don't have the time to work this out right now, but you should look up the Enum class. There are a lot of static methods to help you determine if an index or string is part of an enum and also to convert enums to string and integers etc.

I can figure this out next week if you're still needing help.

[Jhd.Honza]

Well, I don't have problems with returning index of any enum member.

Actually, if you look to the example more carefully, you would find out the issue is (probably) behind the enum class.

I need to tell C# compiler the name of enum to use by (string) variable.

[Scott Penner]

If you want help, you might want to use more tact in the future.
Of course I read your post.
There is a function in the unum class to return an enum index from the string. There are also functions to check the type of a passed enum.

Hope that helps. I was going to figure it out for you tomorrow, but oh well...

[DevGrp]

Try using an indexer in a class or a struct.

[Jhd.Honza]

At first I would like to apologize to Scott if he feels umbraged. I am sure he read the post and tried to help as possible. I was just in a hurry and I also think my previous skills with this way of support were unfortunately not so good. However, I really appreciate every suggestion to the question discussed.




To DevGrp: As you said, indexer can be used in a class or a struct, but I am afraid about using it with enum type.

[Scott Penner]

OK here we go...
No hard feelings?

static string GetItemName(int Index, string Category)
{
    // The name of the object must be explicitly specified, so the Category
    // must have the prefix of the NameSpace,Class and a "+" (not sure why the +)
    string    TestString = "EnumTestNamespace.EnumTest+" + Category ;
    string    ReturnVal = "";

    // Need the error check in case the category doesn't exist
    try
    {
        // Creates a type from the string and parses the index / type into an Enum
        // Then we turn the enum into a string for return...
        ReturnVal = Enum.Parse(Type.GetType(TestString),Index.ToString()).ToString();
    }
    catch
    {
        ReturnVal = "Not found";
    }

    return ReturnVal;
} 

[Jhd.Honza]

Well, thank you Scott, you solved the problem!

It works even without EnumTestNamespace.EnumTest