Casting string to type-safe-enum using user-defined conversion

Question

In order to use Enum\'s in combination with strings, I implemented a StringEnum class based on https://stackoverflow.com/a/424414/1293385.

However I run into problem

Answer 1

You have to define an explicit cast operator on the derived class as well. The base class is not expected to know how to cast to a derived class.

Since operators are static they are not inherited - the explicit cast operator is only defined between string and StringEnum. You can do this rather ugly double-cast yourself:

DerivedStringEnum e = (DerivedStringEnum)(StringEnum)s

Or in your derived class you can put: (edited after @ili pointed out my own oversight)

public static explicit operator DerivedStringEnum(string name) 
{ 
  return (DerivedStringEnum)(StringEnum)name; 
}