how to bind enum values to strings

Question

In my project there is an UI which contains a combobox and the combobox will list some communication protocol, such as TCP/IP, FTP and so on

I want to use an enum to present the communication protocols, maybe like this:

public enum CommuProtocol 
{
   TCPIP = 0,
   FTP,
   MPI,
   Other
}

so, how to bind the enum value to the text in combobox. For example, from the text selected in combobox I can easily know the corresponding enum value and vice versa. And I hope that will be easy to be extended in the future.

The text maybe not the same with the enum value, etc, TCP/IP vs TCPIP...

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, either you make a function which translates the values into strings or you ToString the value:

CommuProtocol prot = CommuProtocol.FTP;
string name = prot.ToString();

You can use the name of the enum member to get a proper value with the parse member of Enum :

CommuProtocol prot = System.Enum.Parse(CommuProtocol, "FTP");

However, since the names of the members might not be suitable for display it's possible that you'll end up making a method that translates the names anyway.

Answer 2

You should go with Enum.GetValues() method. Here is an example: How do you bind an Enum to a DropDownList control in ASP.NET?

Answer 3

This gets asked a lot. See the answers here .