Enum iteration

Daily Knowledge Drop

The static Enum.GetValues method value be used to get an array of the enum values, which can be output as a string or corresponding compatible underlying value

Enum.GetValues

The function and usage of Enum.GetValues is very simple - it converts an enum into an array of the enum values.

Consider the following enum:

public enum OrderStatus
{
    New = 0,
    Processing = 1,
    Fulfilled = 2,
    OutOnDelivery = 3,
    Delivered = 4
}

This can be converted to an array as follows:

OrderStatus[] enumItems = Enum.GetValues<OrderStatus>();

This array can now be iterated over, and output either as a string or compatible underlying type:

foreach (var item in Enum.GetValues<OrderStatus>())
{
    // output the string value
    Console.WriteLine(item);

    // output the underlying value
    Console.WriteLine((int)item);
    // this would also work
    //Console.WriteLine((double)item);
}

The output of the above is:

New
0
Processing
1
Fulfilled
2
OutOnDelivery
3
Delivered
4

Simple, easy and very useful.

Notes

A small but useful piece of knowledge for today. This can be leveraged to automatically populate a UI dropdown with available options, for example, instead of having multiple places with a list of possible values.

References

How to Enumerate an Enum in C#

Daily Drop 220: 12-12-2022

At the start of 2022 I set myself the goal of learning one new coding related piece of knowledge a day.
It could be anything - some.NET / C# functionality I wasn't aware of, a design practice, a cool new coding technique, or just something I find interesting. It could be something I knew at one point but had forgotten, or something completely new, which I may or may never actually use.

The Daily Drop is a record of these pieces of knowledge - writing about and summarizing them helps re-enforce the information for myself, as well as potentially helps others learn something new as well.