Getting attributes of Enum's value

Question

Hi everyone,

I would like to know if it is possible to get attributes of the enum values and not of the enum itself? For example, suppose I have the following enum:

enum FunkyAttributesEnum
{
[Description("Name With Spaces1")]
NameWithoutSpaces1,    
[Description("Name With Spaces2")]
NameWithoutSpaces2
}

What I want is given the enum type, produce 2-tuples of enum string value and its description.

Value was easy:

Array Values = System.Enum.GetValues(typeof(FunkyAttributesEnum));
foreach (int Value in Values)
    Tuple.Value = Enum.GetName(typeof(FunkyAttributesEnum), Value);

But how do I get description attribute's value, to populate Tuple.Desc? I can think of how to do it if the Attribute belongs to the enum itself, but I am at a loss as to how to get it from the value of the enum.

Thank you.

Answer 1

This should do what you need.

        var type = FunkyAttributesEnum.GetType();
        var memInfo = type.GetMember(FunkyAttributesEnum.NameWithoutSpaces1.ToString());
        var attributes = memInfo[0].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
        var description = ((DescriptionAttribute)attributes[0]).Description;

Answer 2

Alternatively, you could do the following:

Dictionary<FunkyAttributesEnum, string> description = new Dictionary<FunkyAttributesEnum, string>()
    {
      { FunkyAttributesEnum.NameWithoutSpaces1, "Name With Spaces1" },
      { FunkyAttributesEnum.NameWithoutSpaces2, "Name With Spaces2" },
    };

And get the description with the following:

string s = description[FunkyAttributesEnum.NameWithoutSpaces1];

In my opinion this is a more efficient way of doing what you want to accomplish, as no reflection is needed..