Enum value as hidden in C#

Question

I have an enum and i want to \"hide\" one of its values (as i add it for future support). The code is written in C#.

public enum MyEnum
{
   ValueA = 0,

            


        

Answer 1

I had a similar problem with enum Flags, but the solution I used should work without the Flags attribute.

You can create two enum types, one for the reserved values and the other for the publicly usable values. You can use HasFlag with the reserved type without casting, but assignment requires casting.

[Flags]
public enum MyEnumReserved {
   Income = 1,
   Expense = 2,
   Discretionary = 4,
   Critical = 8
}

[Flags]
public enum MyEnum {
   Income = MyEnumReserved.Income,
   DiscretionaryExpense = MyEnumReserved.Expense | MyEnumReserved.Discretionary,
   CriticalExpense = MyEnumReserved.Expense | MyEnumReserved.Critical
}

bool IsIncome(MyEnum val) => val.HasFlag(MyEnumReserved.Income);

...
MyEnum foo = (MyEnum)MyEnumReserved.Expense | (MyEnum)MyEnumReserved.Discretionary;