How to get the values of an enum into a SelectList

Question

Imagine I have an enumeration such as this (just as an example):

public enum Direction{
    Horizontal = 0,
    Vertical = 1,
    Diagonal = 2
}

Answer 1

I had many enum Selectlists and, after much hunting and sifting, found that making a generic helper worked best for me. It returns the index or descriptor as the Selectlist value, and the Description as the Selectlist text:

Enum:

public enum Your_Enum
{
    [Description("Description 1")]
    item_one,
    [Description("Description 2")]
    item_two
}

Helper:

public static class Selectlists
{
    public static SelectList EnumSelectlist(bool indexed = false) where TEnum : struct
    {
        return new SelectList(Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum)).Cast().Select(item => new SelectListItem
        {
            Text = GetEnumDescription(item as Enum),
            Value = indexed ? Convert.ToInt32(item).ToString() : item.ToString()
        }).ToList(), "Value", "Text");
    }

    // NOTE: returns Descriptor if there is no Description
    private static string GetEnumDescription(Enum value)
    {
        FieldInfo fi = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());
        DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])fi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
        if (attributes != null && attributes.Length > 0)
            return attributes[0].Description;
        else
            return value.ToString();
    }
}

Usage: Set parameter to 'true' for indices as value:

var descriptorsAsValue = Selectlists.EnumSelectlist();
var indicesAsValue = Selectlists.EnumSelectlist(true);