Convert Enum To String In C#

Updated: 3/7/2017 

This was an old article. Now, we can convert an enum to string by calling the ToString() method.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Enum wkday = Weekday.Friday;
        Console.WriteLine("Enum string is '{0}'", wkday.ToString());
        Console.ReadKey();
    }

    // Enum
    public enum Weekday
    {
        Monday = 0, Tuesday = 1, Wednesday = 2, Thursday = 4, Friday = 5, Saturday = 6, Sunday = 7
    }
}

Original post 

 

I have an enum SortFilter, which looks like following: 

public enum SortFilter
{
      FirstName = 0,
      LastName = 1,
      Age = 2,
      Experience = 3
}

Now, let's say I want to display the string value of enum in some control. For that, I will have to convert Enum value to a string. The following code loops through enum and adds string values to a DropDownList. 

SortByList.Items.Clear();
// Conversion from Enum to String
foreach (string item in Enum.GetNames(typeof(ArrayListBinding.SortFilter)))
{
      SortByList.Items.Add(item);
}

This code converts an enum to string: 

string name= Enum.GetName(typeof(ArrayListBinding.SortFilter), SortFilter.FirstName);

Now let's say, you have an enum string value say, "FirstName" and now you want to convert it to Enum value. The following code converts from a string to enum value, where Developer.SortingBy is of type SortFilter enumeration:

// Conversion from String to Enum
Developer.SortingBy = (SortFilter)Enum.Parse(typeof(SortFilter), "FirstName");