Enums or Tables?

Question

I am making this a community wiki, as I would appreciate people\'s approach and not necessarily an answer.

I am in the situation where I have a lot of lookup type data

Answer 1

First make sure this data is really static. If anything changes, you will have to recompile and redeploy.

If the data is really static, I would go the enum route. You could create a YearlySalaryEnum holding all the values. For string representation I would use a Dictionary with string values and the YearlySalaryEnum as Key. The dictionary can be hold as a static instance in a static class. Usage would be along the lines of (C#):

string highSalary = StaticValues.Salaries[YearlySalaryEnum.High];