Convert an Enum to a String in C#

C# Enum To String

We can convert an enum to a string by calling the ToString() method of an Enum. The following code example shows how to convert an enum to a string in C#.

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 the following:

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

Now, let's say I want to display the string value of an enum in some control. For that, I will have to convert the Enum value to a string. The following code loops through an 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);  
}

The following code converts an enum to a string:

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

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

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

Summary

This post with code example taught us how to convert an enum into a string in C#.