What is a good way to handle enums that need to be strings

Question

I'm pretty sure an enum isn't what I want. What I want is a list of named items

CustomerLookup = "005",
CustomerUpdate = "1010"

The "005" and "1010" aren't my values, they are the values I need to send to a 3rd party that I have no control over. There are close to 500 of them. I just want my code to look nice.

Instead of

SendRequest("005");

I'd rather see

SendRequest(RequestType.CustomerLookup);

Anyone have any self-documenting ideas without getting all crazy in the code?

Answer 1

How about using some kind of associative array?

Answer 2

Anything wrong with:

public static class RequestType
{
     public static readonly string CustomerLookup = "005";
     // etc
}

? Or if you want more type safety:

public sealed class RequestType
{
     public static readonly RequestType CustomerLookup = new RequestType("005");
     // etc

     public string Code { get; private set; }

     private RequestType(string code)
     {
         this.Code = code;
     }
}

That will basically give you a fixed set of values (the constructor is private, so outside code can't create different instances) and you can use the Code property to get at the related string value.

Answer 3

The way you are already doing it seems right to me.

You are clearly defining the requesttype values in your code without ambiguity and when you come to use them you have intellisense on your side.

I think the real issue is how to get the 500 values into your code without any tyypos!

Answer 4

I sometimes use the extension method:

public static class EnumExtension
{
    public static string GetString(this Enum enumeration)
    {
        return Enum.GetName(enumeration.GetType(), enumeration);
    }

    public static int GetInt(this Enum enumeration)
    {
        return Convert.ToInt32(enumeration);
    }

     //if you want you can also have a type specific extension method i.e.

 public static string Code(this Enum enumeration, int characterCount){
     var code = enumeration.GetInt().ToString();
     while(code.Length<characterCount)
          code = 0.ToString()+code;

 }

}

This so this works:

   public enum RequestType{
      CustomerLookup = 5,
      CustomerUpdate=1010
   }


   public class Sample{
          public void SendRequest(RequestType requestType){
                var code = requestType.Code(4);
                 ///process 'code'
          }
   }