String representation of an Enum

Question

I have the following enumeration:

public enum AuthenticationMethod
{
    FORMS = 1,
    WINDOWSAUTHENTICATION = 2,
    SINGLESIGNON = 3
}

T

Answer 1

If you think about the problem we're trying to solve, it's not an enum we need at all. We need an object that allows a certain number of values to be associated with eachother; in other words, to define a class.

Jakub Šturc's type-safe enum pattern is the best option I see here.

Look at it:

• It has a private constructor so only the class itself can define the allowed values.
• It is a sealed class so values can't be modifed through inheritence.
• It is type-safe, allowing your methods to require only that type.
• There is no reflection performance hit incurred by accessing the values.
• And lastly, it can be modified to associate more than two fields together, for example a Name, Description, and a numeric Value.