What to do when bit mask (flags) enum gets too large
I have a very large set of permissions in my application that I represent with a Flags enumeration. It is quickly approaching the practical upper bound of the long data type. And I am forced to come up with a strategy to transition to a different structure soon. Now, I could break this list down into smaller pieces, however, this is already just a subset of the overall permissions for our application, based on our applications layout. We use this distinction extensively for display purposes when managing permissions and I would rather not have to revisit that code at this time if I can avoid it.
Has anybody else run into this issue? How did you get past it? General examples are fine, but I am most interested in a c# specific example if there are any language specific tricks that I can employ to get the job done.
May not be neccessary, but here is the list of Permissions currently defined for the portion of the app I am dealing with.
//Subgroup WebAgent
[Flags]
public enum WebAgentPermission : long
{
[DescriptionAttribute("View Rule Group")]
ViewRuleGroup = 1,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Rule Group")]
AddRuleGroup = 2,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Rule Group")]
EditRuleGroup = 4,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Rule Group")]
DeleteRuleGroup = 8,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Rule")]
ViewRule = 16,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Rule")]
AddRule = 32,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Rule")]
EditRule = 64,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Rule")]
DeleteRule = 128,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Location")]
ViewLocation = 256,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Location")]
AddLocation = 512,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Location")]
EditLocation = 1024,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Location")]
DeleteLocation = 2048,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Volume Statistics")]
ViewVolumeStatistics = 4096,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Volume Statistics")]
EditVolumeStatistics = 8192,
[DescriptionAttribute("Upload Volume Statistics")]
UploadVolumeStatistics = 16384,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Role")]
ViewRole = 32768,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Role")]
AddRole = 65536,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Role")]
EditRole = 131072,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Role")]
DeleteRole = 262144,
[DescriptionAttribute("View User")]
ViewUser = 524288,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add User")]
AddUser = 1048576,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit User")]
EditUser = 2097152,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete User")]
DeleteUser = 4194304,
[DescriptionAttribute("Assign Permissions To User")]
AssignPermissionsToUser = 8388608,
[DescriptionAttribute("Change User Password")]
ChangeUserPassword = 16777216,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Audit Logs")]
ViewAuditLogs = 33554432,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Team")]
ViewTeam = 67108864,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Team")]
AddTeam = 134217728,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Team")]
EditTeam = 268435456,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Team")]
DeleteTeam = 536870912,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Web Agent Reports")]
ViewWebAgentReports = 1073741824,
[DescriptionAttribute("View All Locations")]
ViewAllLocations = 2147483648,
[DescriptionAttribute("Access to My Search")]
AccessToMySearch = 4294967296,
[DescriptionAttribute("Access to Pespective Search")]
AccessToPespectiveSearch = 8589934592,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Pespective Search")]
AddPespectiveSearch = 17179869184,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Pespective Search")]
EditPespectiveSearch = 34359738368,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Pespective Search")]
DeletePespectiveSearch = 68719476736,
[DescriptionAttribute("Access to Search")]
AccessToSearch = 137438953472,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Form Roles")]
ViewFormRole = 274877906944,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add / Edit Form Roles")]
AddFormRole = 549755813888,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete UserFormRolesDifferenceMasks")]
DeleteFormRole = 1099511627776,
[DescriptionAttribute("Export Locations")]
ExportLocations = 2199023255552,
[DescriptionAttribute("Import Locations")]
ImportLocations = 4398046511104,
[DescriptionAttribute("Manage Location Levels")]
ManageLocationLevels = 8796093022208,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Job Title")]
ViewJobTitle = 17592186044416,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Job Title")]
AddJobTitle = 35184372088832,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Job Title")]
EditJobTitle = 70368744177664,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Job Title")]
DeleteJobTitle = 140737488355328,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Dictionary Manager")]
ViewDictionaryManager = 281474976710656,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Dictionary Manager")]
AddDictionaryManager = 562949953421312,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Dictionary Manager")]
EditDictionaryManager = 1125899906842624,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Dictionary Manager")]
DeleteDictionaryManager = 2251799813685248,
[DescriptionAttribute("View Choice Manager")]
ViewChoiceManager = 4503599627370496,
[DescriptionAttribute("Add Choice Manager")]
AddChoiceManager = 9007199254740992,
[DescriptionAttribute("Edit Chioce Manager")]
EditChoiceManager = 18014398509481984,
[DescriptionAttribute("Delete Choice Manager")]
DeleteChoiceManager = 36028797018963968,
[DescriptionAttribute("Import Export Choices")] //57
ImportExportChoices = 72057594037927936
}
Answer
I see values from at least a handful of different enumerations in there...
My first thought was to approach the problem by splitting the permissions up in logical groups (RuleGroupPermissions, RulePermissions, LocationPermissions, ...), and then having a class (WebAgentPermissions) exposing a property for each permission enum type.
Since the permission values seem repetitive, you could probably get away with a single enum in the end:
[Flags]
public enum Permissions
{
View = 1,
Add = 2,
Edit = 4,
Delete = 8
}
And then have the WebAgentPermissions class expose a property for each area where permissions are to be set;
class WebAgentPermissions
{
public Permissions RuleGroup { get; set; }
public Permissions Rule { get; set; }
public Permissions Location { get; set; }
// and so on...
}