How to define an enum with string value?

Question

I am trying to define an Enum and add valid common separators which used in CSV or similar files. Then I am going to bind it to a ComboBox as a dat

Answer 1

While it is really not possible to use a char or a string as the base for an enum, i think this is not what you really like to do.

Like you mentioned you'd like to have an enum of possibilities and show a string representation of this within a combo box. If the user selects one of these string representations you'd like to get out the corresponding enum. And this is possible:

First we have to link some string to an enum value. This can be done by using the DescriptionAttribute like it is described here or here.

Now you need to create a list of enum values and corresponding descriptions. This can be done by using the following method:

/// 

/// Creates an List with all keys and values of a given Enum class
/// 
/// Must be derived from class Enum!
/// A list of KeyValuePair<Enum, string> with all available
/// names and values of the given Enum.
public static IList> ToList() where T : struct
{
    var type = typeof(T);

    if (!type.IsEnum)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("T must be an enum");
    }

    return (IList>)
            Enum.GetValues(type)
                .OfType()
                .Select(e =>
                {
                    var asEnum = (Enum)Convert.ChangeType(e, typeof(Enum));
                    return new KeyValuePair(e, asEnum.Description());
                })
                .ToArray();
}

Now you'll have a list of key value pairs of all enums and their description. So let's simply assign this as a data source for a combo box.

var comboBox = new ComboBox();
comboBox.ValueMember = "Key"
comboBox.DisplayMember = "Value";
comboBox.DataSource = EnumUtilities.ToList();

comboBox.SelectedIndexChanged += (sender, e) =>
{
    var selectedEnum = (Separator)comboBox.SelectedValue;
    MessageBox.Show(selectedEnum.ToString());
}

The user sees all the string representations of the enum and within your code you'll get the desired enum value.