Can we define implicit conversions of enums in c#?

Question

Is it possible to define an implicit conversion of enums in c#?

something that could achieve this?

public enum MyEnum
{
    one = 1, two = 2
}

MyEnu         


        

Answer 1

You can't do implict conversions (except for zero), and you can't write your own instance methods - however, you can probably write your own extension methods:

public enum MyEnum { A, B, C }
public static class MyEnumExt
{
    public static int Value(this MyEnum foo) { return (int)foo; }
    static void Main()
    {
        MyEnum val = MyEnum.A;
        int i = val.Value();
    }
}

This doesn't give you a lot, though (compared to just doing an explicit cast).

One of the main times I've seen people want this is for doing [Flags] manipulation via generics - i.e. a bool IsFlagSet(T value, T flag); method. Unfortunately, C# 3.0 doesn't support operators on generics, but you can get around this using things like this, which make operators fully available with generics.