String enumeration/grouping

[archway]

I know you cannot have string enumerations such as:

enum myStringEnum {
enumItem1 = "value 1",
enumItem2 = "value 2",
etc
}

However, I was wondering whether you had ever created something that would
mimic this? I have tried the following:

struct myStringEnum {
public const string EnumItem1 = "value 1";
public const string EnumItem2 = "value 2";
etc
}

However, the problem with this is when you wish to define properties in a
class whereby you wish to set a default value.

e.g.

private myStringEnum _myEnumProperty = myStringEnum.EnumItem1

This would throw an exception, as the value is a string, but you are
declaring it of myStringEnum type.

Basically, I would like to be able to create a way to group strings together
in a similar manner to an enumeration. Has anyone got any ideas on how to
achieve this?

Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

http://www.codeguru.com/cs_syntax/StringToEnum.html

 

[archway]

Thanks for the link, but how would this work for strings that contain
spaces?

 

[Guest]

http://tinyurl.com/bv05

Here is another one.

Yes, thanks for the sarcasim, I had looked on google prior to posting the
message and could not find a satisfactory answer. Perhaps my searching
technique is just pants!!

I will have a play with it, but am not convinced on first impressions.

Thanks

 

[archway]

Yeah, well I can see your searching technique is just fine for your tastes,
but not really up my street.

 

[archway]

Yes, I knew about using ToString(). I forgot to mention that I would need
the string that is returned to not necessarily be the same as the name of
the enum item.

For example:

enum {
myEnumItem1 = "My Enum Item 1",
myEnumItem2 = "Something completely different"
}

Although unlikely there will be anything completely different, it is more of
a case of being able to have spaces really.

Thanks

 

[Jon]

Do you need a particular ordinal associated with the string?

If not, you can use:

public class StringGroup{
public static readonly string Str1 = "string #1";
public static readonly string Str2 = "string #2";
}

else you can use something like:

public struct StringEnum{
public static readonly StringEnum Str1 = new StringEnum(0);
public static readonly StringEnum Str2 = new StringEnum(1);

private static string[] strings = new string[2] {
"string #1",
"string #2",
}

private int val;

public StringEnum( int val ) {
this.val = val;
}

public override string ToString() {
return strings( value );
}

public static explicit operator int ( StringEnum stringEnum ) {
return stringEnum.val;
}
}

 

[archway]

Do you have any idea how I could implement some form of looping within this
structure? For example, use a foreach ?

Thanks