Using an enum as an array index in C#

Question

I want to do the same as in this question, that is:

enum DaysOfTheWeek {Sunday=0, Monday, Tuesday...};
string[] message_array = new string[number_of_items_at         


        

Answer 1

You can always do some extra mapping to get an array index of an enum value in a consistent and defined way:

int ArrayIndexFromDaysOfTheWeekEnum(DaysOfWeek day)
{
   switch (day)
   {
     case DaysOfWeek.Sunday: return 0;
     case DaysOfWeek.Monday: return 1;
     ...
     default: throw ...;
   }
}

Be as specific as you can. One day someone will modify your enum and the code will fail because the enum's value was (mis)used as an array index.