Enum ToString with user friendly strings

Question

My enum consists of the following values:

private enum PublishStatusses{
    NotCompleted,
    Completed,
    Error
};

I want to be able to

Answer 1

I created a reverse extension method to convert the description back into an enum value:

public static T ToEnumValue(this string enumerationDescription) where T : struct
{
    var type = typeof(T);

    if (!type.IsEnum)
        throw new ArgumentException("ToEnumValue(): Must be of enum type", "T");

    foreach (object val in System.Enum.GetValues(type))
        if (val.GetDescription() == enumerationDescription)
            return (T)val;

    throw new ArgumentException("ToEnumValue(): Invalid description for enum " + type.Name, "enumerationDescription");
}