How to get Enum object by value in C#?

Question

I recently encountered a case when I needed to get an Enum object by value (to be saved via EF CodeFirst), and here is my Enum:

public enum ShipmentStatus {
  New = 0,
  Shipped = 1,
  Canceled = 2
}

So I needed to get ShipmentStatus.Shipped object by value 1.

So how could I accomplish that?

Solution 1

Why not use this build in feature?

ShipmentStatus shipped = (ShipmentStatus)System.Enum.GetValues(typeof(ShipmentStatus)).GetValue(1);

Solution 2

This should work, either (just casting the int value to enum type):

int _val = 1;
ShipmentStatus _item = (ShipmentStatus)_val;

Beware, that it may cause an error if that enum is not defined.

Solution 3

After some battling with Enum I created this - a universal helper class that will do what I needed - getting key by value, and more importantly - from ANY Enum type:

public static class EnumHelpers {

  public static T GetEnumObjectByValue<T>(int valueId) {
    return (T) Enum.ToObject(typeof (T), valueId);
  }

}

So, to get Enum object ShipmentStatus.Shipped this will return this object:

var enumObject = EnumHelpers.GetEnumObjectByValue<ShipmentStatus>(1);

So basicaly you can use any Enum object and get its key by value:

var enumObject = EnumHelpers.GetEnumObjectByValue<YOUR_ENUM_TYPE>(VALUE);

Comments

[juharr]

You might want to add a check to make sure the value is valid for the Enum. According the the documentation for Enum.ToObject it does not do that check. You can use Enum.IsDefined for that.

[Alexander Bell]

Exactly right! Otherwise, the conversion is just a line of code.

[middelpat]

hmm didn't think about this. a lot shorter :)

[Alexander Bell]

Yeah, it's kinda "short-cut" :-)