Convert string to Brushes/Brush color name in C#

Question

I have a configuration file where a developer can specify a text color by passing in a string:

 <text value="Hello, World" color="Red"/>

Rather than have a gigantic switch statement look for all of the possible colors, it'd be nice to just use the properties in the class System.Drawing.Brushes instead so internally I can say something like:

 Brush color = Brushes.Black;   // Default

 // later on...
 this.color = (Brush)Enum.Parse(typeof(Brush), prasedValue("color"));

Except that the values in Brush/Brushes aren't enums. So Enum.Parse gives me no joy. Suggestions?

Solution 1

Recap of all previous answers, different ways to convert a string to a Color or Brush:

// best, using Color's static method
Color red1 = Color.FromName("Red");

// using a ColorConverter
TypeConverter tc1 = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(typeof(Color)); // ..or..
TypeConverter tc2 = new ColorConverter();
Color red2 = (Color)tc.ConvertFromString("Red");

// using Reflection on Color or Brush
Color red3 = (Color)typeof(Color).GetProperty("Red").GetValue(null, null);

// in WPF you can use a BrushConverter
SolidColorBrush redBrush = (SolidColorBrush)new BrushConverter().ConvertFromString("Red");

Solution 2

String to brush:

myTextBlock.Foreground = new BrushConverter().ConvertFromString("#FFFFFF") as SolidColorBrush;

That's my case here!

Solution 3

A brush can be declared like this

Brush myBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.FromName("Red"));

Solution 4

D'oh. After a while of looking I found:

 Color.FromName(a.Value)

After hitting "post". From there it's a short step to:

 color = new SolidBrush(Color.FromName(a.Value));

I'll leave this question here for others....

Solution 5

You could use reflection for this:

Type t = typeof(Brushes);
Brush b = (Brush)t.GetProperty("Red").GetValue(null, null);

Of course, you'll want some error handling/range checking if the string is wrong.

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Comments

[Lucas]

Note that Color and Brush is not the same thing, you seem to be mixing them up

[Jon B]

Strictly speaking, it's a "coincidence" that the static properties on Brushes use the same name as the static properties on Color. However, that's probably nothing to worry about.

[Lucas]

System.Drawing.ColorTranslator has FromHtml() and ToHtml()

[Lucas]

TypeDescriptor cannot convert from string to Brush. It can convert string to Color, though...

[Lucas]

Also note that this requires .Net 3.0 or later

[John M]

+1 An alternative is: Brush aBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(240, 240, 240));

[Chuck Savage]

Mind adding how you'd do this with WPF's XAML as well?

[Matt]

I get this error: Error 1 'System.Windows.Media.Color' does not contain a definition for 'FromName' VS Express 2012, and I am in a standard WPF application codebehind.

[escape-llc]

@Matt FromColor() is a member of Windows.Drawing.Color which is not a WPF class.

[Sasha Yakobchuk]

Unlike other answers, this one does not create new brush instances, which is good, see stackoverflow.com/questions/40904567/…