Get the Enum value Description

Question

I have my enumHelper class that contains these:

public static IList GetValues()
{
  IList list = new List();
  foreach (object val         


        

Answer 1

Take a look at this article. You can do this using the System.ComponentModel.DescriptionAttribute or creating your own attribute:

/// 

/// Provides a description for an enumerated type.
/// 
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Enum | AttributeTargets.Field, 
 AllowMultiple = false)]
public sealed class EnumDescriptionAttribute :  Attribute
{
   private string description;

   /// 

   /// Gets the description stored in this attribute.
   /// 
   /// The description stored in the attribute.
   public string Description
   {
      get
      {
         return this.description;
      }
   }

   /// 

   /// Initializes a new instance of the
   ///  class.
   /// 
   /// The description to store in this attribute.
   /// 
   public EnumDescriptionAttribute(string description)
       : base()
   {
       this.description = description;
   }
} 

You then need to decorate the enum values with this new attribute:

public enum SimpleEnum
{
   [EnumDescription("Today")]
   Today,

   [EnumDescription("Last 7 days")]
   Last7,

   [EnumDescription("Last 14 days")]
   Last14,

   [EnumDescription("Last 30 days")]
   Last30,

   [EnumDescription("All")]
   All
} 

All of the "magic" takes place in the following extension methods:

/// 

/// Provides a static utility object of methods and properties to interact
/// with enumerated types.
/// 
public static class EnumHelper
{
   /// 

   /// Gets the  of an  
   /// type value.
   /// 
   /// The  type value.
   /// A string containing the text of the
   /// .
   public static string GetDescription(this Enum value)
   {
      if (value == null)
      {
         throw new ArgumentNullException("value");
      }

      string description = value.ToString();
      FieldInfo fieldInfo = value.GetType().GetField(description);
      EnumDescriptionAttribute[] attributes =
         (EnumDescriptionAttribute[])
       fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(EnumDescriptionAttribute), false);

      if (attributes != null && attributes.Length > 0)
      {
         description = attributes[0].Description;
      }
      return description;
   }

   /// 

   /// Converts the  type to an  
   /// compatible object.
   /// 
   /// The  type.
   /// An  containing the enumerated
   /// type value and description.
   public static IList ToList(this Type type)
   {
      if (type == null)
      {
         throw new ArgumentNullException("type");
      }

      ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
      Array enumValues = Enum.GetValues(type);

      foreach (Enum value in enumValues)
      {
         list.Add(new KeyValuePair(value, GetDescription(value)));
      }

      return list;
   }
} 

Finally, you can then simply bind the combobox:

combo.DataSource = typeof(SimpleEnum).ToList();