Enumeration extension methods

.net enums extension-methods enumeration
Eric Haskins picture Eric Haskins · Nov 9, 2008 · Viewed 48.2k times · Source

In vs2008, is it possible to write an extension methods which would apply to any enumeration.

I know you can write extension methods against a specific enumeration, but I want to be able to every enumeration using a single extension method. Is this possible?

Answer

Greg Beech picture Greg Beech · Nov 9, 2008

Yes, just code against the base Enum type, e.g.

public static void Something(this Enum e)
{
    // code here
}

The down-side is you'll probably end up doing some quite nasty stuff like finding the real base type using Enum.GetUnderlyingType, casting, and going down different branches depending on what the base type of the enum is, but you can find some good uses for it (e.g. we have IsOneOf and IsCombinationOf methods that apply to all enums).

PS: Remember when writing the method that, although ill advised, you can use float and double as the base types for enums so you'll need some special cases for those as well as unsigned values.

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