EnumHelper returns description instead Enum value

Question

I use an EnumHelper method and try to get both description and enum value (Id) as shown below:

EnumHelper:

public static class MyEnumHelper
{
    public static string GetDescription<T>(this T enumerationValue)
        where T : struct
    {
        System.Type type = enumerationValue.GetType();
        if (!type.IsEnum)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Must be Enum type", "enumerationValue");
        }
        //for the enum
        MemberInfo[] memberInfo = type.GetMember(enumerationValue.ToString());
        if (memberInfo != null && memberInfo.Length > 0)
        {
            object[] attrs = memberInfo[0]
                .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

            if (attrs != null && attrs.Length > 0)
            {
                return ((DescriptionAttribute)attrs[0]).Description;
            }
        }
        return enumerationValue.ToString();
    }
}

Enum:

public enum StatusEnum
{
    [Description("Deleted")]
    Deleted= 0,

    [Description("Active")]
    Active= 1,

    [Description("Passive")]
    Passive= 2
}

Entity:

public class DemoEntity
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    public StatusEnum StatusId { get; set; }

    [NotMapped]
    public string StatusName
    {
        get { return MyEnumHelper.GetDescription(StatusId); }
    }
}

Controller:

DemoEntity entity = DemoEntity();
entity.StatusId = StatusEnum.Passive; 
// !!! This returns "Passive" instead of its value 2. How can I get its value?

However, when trying to assign Id value of an enum by using strongly type feature of the enum as shown above, I still get its description instead of Id . Any idea about where the problem is?

Answer 1

just cast your enum to int if you need the value

entity.Id = (int)StatusEnum.Passive; 

Answer 2

I would have perhaps done this:

public enum Status
{
    Deleted= 0,
    Active= 1,
    Passive= 2
}

public class DemoEntity
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    public Status Status { get; set; }

    [NotMapped]
    public string StatusName
    {
        get { return this.Status.ToString("g"); }
    }

    [NotMapped]
    public int StatusId
    {
        get { return (int)this.Status; }
    }
}

• Don't suffix "Enum" onto your enums - you don't do it for classes (DemoEntityClass?) and Intellisense draws a clear distinction between a class and an enum (for example). Microsoft don't do it (StringSplitOptions, not StringSplitOptionsEnum)
• If your description attributes are the same as your enum name values (as yours are), ToString("g") is a simpler, baked in way of turning the enum name into a string
• Enums are named ints; ints can be cast back and forth to enums willingly. If you try to cast an int to an enum and it is not a member of the enum, it just carries on behaving as the same int value ( ((Status)3).ToString() returns "3");

Consider the library Enums.Net if you're getting heavy into work with enums