Get name of Enum instance

Question

Say I have this enum:

public enum MyEnum{
    ValueOne = 1,
    ValueTwo = 2,
    ValueThree = 3
}

And then this field/variable:

public MyEnum myEnumInstance = MyEnum.ValueTwo;

I need to get the name of myEnumInstance via reflection from another class.

I tried:

myClassInstance.GetType().GetField("myEnumInstance").GetValue(myClassInstance)

Which always returns ValueOne, no matter what myEnumInstance is set to.

How can I get the string value/name of the enum field via reflection?

Solution

You don't need reflection. You just need to call .ToString().

myEnumInstance.ToString();

which will output "ValueTwo";

However, if you insist on using reflection, the following example works just fine:

var myClassInstance = new MyClass();
myClassInstance.GetType()
               .GetField("myEnumInstance")
               .GetValue(myClassInstance);

public enum MyEnum
{
    ValueOne = 1,
    ValueTwo = 2,
    ValueThree = 3
}

public class MyClass
{
    public MyEnum myEnumInstance = MyEnum.ValueTwo;
}

Note that in C#6 you can also use nameof for some strongly-typed syntactic sugar:

myClassInstance.GetType()
               .GetField(nameof(myEnumInstance))
               .GetValue(myClassInstance);

If you are STILL not able to access the field, it is because it is not public as described in your sample code, in which you'd need to pass in the appropriate binding flags.

myClassInstance
    .GetType()
    .GetField(nameof(myEnumInstance), 
        BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.GetField | BindingFlags.Instance)
    .GetValue(myClassInstance);

Comments

[Keith M]

I edited the question to add that I'm accessing this from another class. The way I'm doing this requires reflection. Trust me, I would do myEnumInstance.ToString(); if it was that simple :)

[NStuke]

You should still be able to call myClassInstance.myEnumInstance.ToString() even given your edit?

[David L]

@KeithM NStuke should be correct based on your edit. You can still call .ToString().