How to get enum from string by using NHibernate?

Question

I have an enum AccountType.

Currently, in my Account class I have second thing:

public class Account
{
    public virtual long AccountId { get; set; }

    public virtual int AccountTypeId { get; set; }

    public virtual AccountType AccountType
    {
        get
        {
            return (AccountType)AccountTypeId;
        }

        set
        {
            AccountTypeId = (int)value;
        }
    }
}

and in my *.hbm.xml I have

<class name="Account" table="tAccount">
    <id name="Id">
      <column name="AccountId" sql-type="bigint"/>
      <generator class="assigned"/>
    </id>
    <property name="AccountTypeId" column="AccountType"/>
</class>

Works fine BUT, now I need to change column AccountType from int to string, and as a result, old code wouldn't work any more.

So, basically, instead of int, I need to take string from database and get enum from it.

How it's supposed to be done?

PS Sorry for my bad English.

Answer 1

As already suggested by @Reniuz by using Enum.Parse or better Enum.TryParse :

public virtual AccountType? AccountType
{
    get
    {
        AccountType type;
        if (Enum.TryParse(AccountTypeString, out type))
            return type
        return null;
    }
    set
    {
        AccountTypeString = String.IsNullOrWhitespace(value) ? null : value.ToString();
    }
}

Depending on how often this is called you possibly should somehow "cache" the parsed value.
UPDATE: I changed it to a nullable as per request.