convert an enum to another type of enum

Question

I have an enum of for example \'Gender\' (Male =0 , Female =1) and I have another enum from a service which has its own Gender enum (Male =0

Answer 1

I know that's an old question and have a lot of answers, However I find that using a switch statement as in the accepted answer is somewhat cumbersome, so here are my 2 cents:

My personal favorite method is to use a dictionary, where the key is the source enum and the value is the target enum - so in the case presented on the question my code would look like this:

var genderTranslator = new Dictionary();
genderTranslator.Add(TheirGender.Male, MyGender.Male);
genderTranslator.Add(TheirGender.Female, MyGender.Female);
genderTranslator.Add(TheirGender.Unknown, MyGender.Unknown);

// translate their to mine    
var myValue = genderTranslator[TheirValue];

// translate mine to their
var TheirValue = genderTranslator .FirstOrDefault(x => x.Value == myValue).Key;;

Of course, this can be wrapped in a static class and be used as an extension methods:

public static class EnumTranslator
{

    private static Dictionary GenderTranslator = InitializeGenderTranslator();

    private static Dictionary InitializeGenderTranslator()
    {
        var translator = new Dictionary();
        translator.Add(TheirGender.Male, MyGender.Male);
        translator.Add(TheirGender.Female, MyGender.Female);
        translator.Add(TheirGender.Unknown, MyGender.Unknown);
        return translator;
    }

    public static MyGender Translate(this TheirGender theirValue)
    {
        return GenderTranslator[theirValue];
    }

    public static TheirGender Translate(this MyGender myValue)
    {
        return GenderTranslator.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Value == myValue).Key;
    }

}