Windows Phone 8 - enums & DataAnnotations

Question

Were this not a window phone 8 project, If I wanted to display a human readable version of an enum I would use a niftt DataAnnotation like such

public enum InstallationType
{
   [Display(Description="Forward of Bulk Head")]
    FORWARD = 0,

   [Display(Description="Rear of Bulk Head")]
    REAR = 1,

   [Display(Description="Roof Mounted")]
    ROOF = 2,
}

and pull them out using something to the effect of:

public static string GetDescriptionFromEnumValue(Enum value)
    {
        DisplayAttribute attribute = value.GetType()
            .GetField(value.ToString())
            .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DisplayAttribute), false)
            .SingleOrDefault() as DisplayAttribute;
        return attribute == null ? value.ToString() : attribute.Description;
    }

Easy, But my problem is that System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotation is not available in Windows Phone. I have tried using a Portable Class Library but when I target WP8 I loose the ability to hit that namespace.

What other options are there?

Answer 1

System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotation is not available in Windows Phone , you can make use of Linq. Follow this example to bind enum,

Missing in wp8

Binding enum in wp8

Answer 2

You can try following one.

Suppose you have an enum with description like below

public enum FriendType : byte
{
    [Description("Friend Only")]
    Freind,
    [Description("Friend InComing")]
    InComing,
    [Description("Friend OutGoing")]
    OutGoing,
    [Description("Friend Block")]
    Block
}

Now Create a generic class and methods to read the description of a enum

public static class EnumHelper<T>
{
    //to get full description list
    public static List<string> GetEnumDescriptionList()
    {
        var type = typeof(T);
        var names = Enum.GetNames(type).ToList();

        var list = new List<string>();
        foreach (var name in names)
        {
            var field = type.GetField(name);
            var customAttribute = field.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
            var temp = customAttribute.Length > 0 ? ((DescriptionAttribute)customAttribute[0]).Description : name;                   
            list.Add(temp);
        }
        return list;
    }

    //for single description  
    public static string GetEnumDescription(string value)
    {
        var type = typeof(T);
        var name = Enum.GetNames(type).Where(f => f.Equals(value, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)).Select(d => d).FirstOrDefault();

        if (name == null) return string.Empty;
        var field = type.GetField(name);
        var customAttribute = field.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
        return customAttribute.Length > 0 ? ((DescriptionAttribute)customAttribute[0]).Description : name;
    }
}

Then call the medthod with enum type.

var descriptionList = EnumHelper<FriendType >.GetEnumDescription();

var singleDescription = EnumHelper<FriendType>.GetEnumDescription("block");