Switch on Enum (with Flags attribute) without declaring every possible combination?

Question

how do i switch on an enum which have the flags attribute set (or more precisely is used for bit operations) ?

I want to be able to hit all cases in a switch that matche

Answer 1

Flags enums can be treated as a simple integral type in which each individual bit corresponds to one of the flagged values. You can exploit this property to convert the bit-flagged enum value into an array of booleans, and then dispatch the methods you care about from a correlated array of delegates.

EDIT: We could certainly make this code more compact through the use of LINQ and some helper functions, but I think it's easier to understand in the less sophisticated form. This may be case where maintainability trumps elegance.

Here's an example:

[Flags()]public enum CheckType
{
  Form = 1,       
  QueryString = 2,
  TempData = 4,
}

void PerformActions( CheckType c )
{
  // array of bits set in the parameter {c}
  bool[] actionMask = { false, false, false };
  // array of delegates to the corresponding actions we can invoke...
  Action availableActions = { DoSomething, DoSomethingElse, DoAnotherThing };

  // disassemble the flags into a array of booleans
  for( int i = 0; i < actionMask.Length; i++ )
    actionMask[i] = (c & (1 << i)) != 0;

  // for each set flag, dispatch the corresponding action method
  for( int actionIndex = 0; actionIndex < actionMask.Length; actionIndex++ )
  {
      if( actionMask[actionIndex])
          availableActions[actionIndex](); // invoke the corresponding action
  }
}

Alternatively, if the order in which you evaluate doesn't matter, here is simpler, clearer solution that works just as well. If order does matter, replace the bit-shifting operations with an array containing the flags in the order you want to evaluate them in:

int flagMask = 1 << 31; // start with high-order bit...
while( flagMask != 0 )   // loop terminates once all flags have been compared
{
  // switch on only a single bit...
  switch( theCheckType & flagMask )
  {
   case CheckType.Form:
     DoSomething(/*Some type of collection is passed */);
     break;

   case CheckType.QueryString:
     DoSomethingElse(/*Some other type of collection is passed */);
     break;

   case CheckType.TempData
     DoWhatever(/*Some different type of collection is passed */);
     break;
  }

  flagMask >>= 1;  // bit-shift the flag value one bit to the right
}