Tag Archives: C#

How to convert string to Enum in C#

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This is a common task for C# programmers. You have a string value and need to convert it to the equivalent Enum value. Piece o’ cake: code some nifty switch statement or maybe a bunch of if / else conditions to test for every possible match, right? … er, NO.

Say you have declared an Enum like:

public enum FeedBackMessageType
{
None = 0,
Success,
Warning,
Error
}

Then you should be able to convert a string like:

var feedbackMessageType = (FeedBackMessageType) Enum.Parse(typeof(FeedBackMessageType), "Success", true);

If you are trying to convert a string that doesn’t match any of values from the enum, you will get a ArgumentException. How to avoid this? Try:

var invalidMessageType = "Info";
var feedbackMessageType = Enum.IsDefined(typeof(FeedBackMessageType), invalidMessageType)
    ? (FeedBackMessageType) Enum.Parse(typeof(FeedBackMessageType), invalidMessageType , true)
    : FeedBackMessageType.None;

One caveat, the IsDefined method has no ignore case parameter. According to MSDN: The characters in the string must have the same case as the enumeration member name. :/

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