Convert string to enum, but when enum type is only known at runtime

Question

I am writing some code to read values from a database and convert them into an object.

My object has a few members whose type is custom defined enums.

I am trying something like this in order to convert a string variable to an enum:

var castTo = fieldInfo.PropertyType.GetType(); //returns a Type object, e.g. MyEnum
var parsedEnum = (castTo) Enum.Parse(castTo, valueFromSql);

The problem is that compiler wouldn't accept a variable that contains a Type object.

There is no problem if instead of the castTo variable I use an enum name, but it needs to be defined at runtime.

Answer 1

You could try that:

var castTo = fieldInfo.PropertyType.GetType(); 
var parsedEnum = Convert.ChangeType(Enum.Parse(castTo, valueFromSql), castTo);

More information about changing type can be found here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.convert.changetype(v=vs.110).aspx

There should be also a workaround for situation where database contains value that doesn't exists in your enum . Application will crash, as it will be not possible to do casting then.