How to enumerate an enum

Question

How can you enumerate an enum in C#?

E.g. the following code does not compile:

public enum Suit
{         


        

Answer 1

What if you know the type will be an enum, but you don't know what the exact type is at compile time?

public class EnumHelper
{
    public static IEnumerable GetValues()
    {
        return Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Cast();
    }

    public static IEnumerable getListOfEnum(Type type)
    {
        MethodInfo getValuesMethod = typeof(EnumHelper).GetMethod("GetValues").MakeGenericMethod(type);
        return (IEnumerable)getValuesMethod.Invoke(null, null);
    }
}

The method getListOfEnum uses reflection to take any enum type and returns an IEnumerable of all enum values.

Usage:

Type myType = someEnumValue.GetType();

IEnumerable resultEnumerable = getListOfEnum(myType);

foreach (var item in resultEnumerable)
{
    Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Item: {0} Value: {1}",item.ToString(),(int)item));
}