Using 'Type' and 'Enum' as parameters in .NET

Question

I'm trying to writing a method that parses a string parameter into an enum. The enum's type is also determined by a parameter. This is what I've started with:

public static type GetValueOrEmpty(string text, Type type)
{
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
    {
     return (type)Enum.Parse(typeof(type)value);
    }
    else
    {
     // Do something else
    }
}

Obviously this won't work for a number of reasons. Is there a way this can be done?

Answer 1

You can make it generic instead, if you know the type at compile-time:

public static T GetValueOrEmpty<T>(string text)
{
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
    {
        return (T) Enum.Parse(typeof(T), text);
    }
    else
    {
        // Do something else
    }
}

If you don't know the type at compile-time, then having the method return that type won't be much use to you. You can make it return object of course:

public static object GetValueOrEmpty(string text, Type type)
{
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
    {
        return Enum.Parse(type, text);
    }
    else
    {
        // Do something else
    }
}

If neither of these are useful to you, please give more information about what you're trying to achieve.

Answer 2

You need to use a generic method. Something like this should do the trick:

public static TEnum ParseEnum<TEnum>(string s)
{
    return (TEnum)Enum.Parse(typeof(TEnum), s);
}

EDIT: Fixed typo in code...

Answer 3

I really recommend you take a look at the blog post written by my friend: Enumerations and Strings - Stop the Madness! He goes a step further allowing you to easily parse nullable enums also.