Choosing the default value of an Enum type without having to change values

Question

In C#, is it possible to decorate an Enum type with an attribute or do something else to specify what the default value should be, without having the change the values? The

Answer 1

The default is the first one in the definition. For example:

public enum MyEnum{His,Hers,Mine,Theirs}

Enum.GetValues(typeOf(MyEnum)).GetValue(0);

This will return His

Answer 2

An enum's default is whatever enumeration equates to zero. I don't believe this is changeable by attribute or other means.

(MSDN says: "The default value of an enum E is the value produced by the expression (E)0.")

Answer 3

If zero doesn't work as the proper default value, you can use the component model to define a workaround for the enum:

[DefaultValue(None)]
public enum Orientation
{
     None = -1,
     North = 0,
     East = 1,
     South = 2,
     West = 3
 }

public static class Utilities
{
    public static TEnum GetDefaultValue<TEnum>() where TEnum : struct
    {
        Type t = typeof(TEnum);
        DefaultValueAttribute[] attributes = (DefaultValueAttribute[])t.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DefaultValueAttribute), false);
        if (attributes != null &&
            attributes.Length > 0)
        {
            return (TEnum)attributes[0].Value;
        }
        else
        {
            return default(TEnum);
        }
    }
}

and then you can call:

Orientation o = Utilities.GetDefaultValue<Orientation>();
System.Diagnostics.Debug.Print(o.ToString());

Note: you will need to include the following line at the top of the file:

using System.ComponentModel;

This does not change the actual C# language default value of the enum, but gives a way to indicate (and get) the desired default value.

Answer 4

You can't, but if you want, you can do some trick. :)

    public struct Orientation
    {
        ...
        public static Orientation None = -1;
        public static Orientation North = 0;
        public static Orientation East = 1;
        public static Orientation South = 2;
        public static Orientation West = 3;
    }

usage of this struct as simple enum.
where you can create p.a == Orientation.East (or any value that you want) by default
to use the trick itself, you need to convert from int by code.
there the implementation:

        #region ConvertingToEnum
        private int val;
        static Dictionary<int, string> dict = null;

        public Orientation(int val)
        {
            this.val = val;
        }

        public static implicit operator Orientation(int value)
        {
            return new Orientation(value - 1);
        }

        public static bool operator ==(Orientation a, Orientation b)
        {
            return a.val == b.val;
        }

        public static bool operator !=(Orientation a, Orientation b)
        {
            return a.val != b.val;
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            if (dict == null)
                InitializeDict();
            if (dict.ContainsKey(val))
                return dict[val];
            return val.ToString();
        }

        private void InitializeDict()
        {
            dict = new Dictionary<int, string>();
            foreach (var fields in GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static))
            {
                dict.Add(((Orientation)fields.GetValue(null)).val, fields.Name);
            }
        } 
        #endregion

Answer 5

If you define the Default enum as the enum with the smallest value you can use this:

public enum MyEnum { His = -1, Hers = -2, Mine = -4, Theirs = -3 }

var firstEnum = ((MyEnum[])Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyEnum)))[0];

firstEnum == Mine.

This doesn't assume that the enum has a zero value.

Answer 6

[DefaultValue(None)]
public enum Orientation
{
    None = -1,
    North = 0,
    East = 1,
    South = 2,
    West = 3
}

Then in the code you can use

public Orientation GetDefaultOrientation()
{
   return default(Orientation);
}