EF5 Code First Enums and Lookup Tables

Question

I\'d like to define an enum for EF5 to use, and a corresponding lookup table. I know EF5 now supports enums, but out-of-the-box, it seems it only supports this at the objec

Answer 1

I have included this answer as I've made some additional changes from @HerrKater

I made a small addition to Herr Kater's Answer (also based on Tim Abell's comment). The update is to use a method to get the enum value from the DisplayName Attribute if exists else split the PascalCase enum value.

 private static string GetDisplayValue(object value)
 {
   var fieldInfo = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());

   var descriptionAttributes = fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(
     typeof(DisplayAttribute), false) as DisplayAttribute[];

   if (descriptionAttributes == null) return string.Empty;
   return (descriptionAttributes.Length > 0)
   ? descriptionAttributes[0].Name
   : System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(value.ToString(), "([a-z](?=[A-Z])|[A-Z](?=[A-Z][a-z]))", "$1 ");
 }

Update Herr Katers example to call the method:

 command = string.Format("INSERT INTO {0} VALUES({1},'{2}');", enumType.Name, (int)enumvalue,
                                        GetDisplayValue(enumvalue));

Enum Example

public enum PaymentMethod
{
    [Display(Name = "Credit Card")]
    CreditCard = 1,

    [Display(Name = "Direct Debit")]
    DirectDebit = 2
}