What is main use of Enumeration?

Question

What is main use of Enumeration in c#?

Edited:- suppose I want to compare the string variable with the any enumeration item then how i can do this

Answer 1

There are two meanings of enumeration in C#.

An enumeration (noun) is a set of named values. Example:

public enum Result {
  True,
  False,
  FileNotFound
}

Enumeration (noun form of the verb enumerate) is when you step through the items in a collection.

The IEnumerable interface is used by classes that provide the ability to be enumerated. An array is a simple example of such a class. Another example is how LINQ uses it to return results as enumerable collections.

Edit:

If you want to compare a string to an enum value, you either have to parse the string to the enum type:

if ((Result)Enum.Parse(typeof(Result), theString) == Result.True) ...

or convert the enum value to a string:

if (theString == Result.True.ToString()) ...

(Be careful how you compare the values, depending on whether you want a case sensetive match or not.)

If you want to enumerate a collection and look for a string, you can use the foreach command:

foreach (string s in theCollection) {
  if (s == theString) {
    // found
  }
}