How to get C# Enum description from value?

Question

I have an enum with Description attributes like this:

public enum MyEnum
{
    Name1 = 1,
    [Description("Here is another")]
    HereIsAnother = 2,
    [Description("Last one")]
    LastOne = 3
}

I found this bit of code for retrieving the description based on an Enum

public static string GetEnumDescription(Enum value)
{
    FieldInfo fi = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());

    DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = fi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false) as DescriptionAttribute[];

    if (attributes != null && attributes.Any())
    {
        return attributes.First().Description;
    }

    return value.ToString();
}

This allows me to write code like:

var myEnumDescriptions = from MyEnum n in Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyEnum))
                         select new { ID = (int)n, Name = Enumerations.GetEnumDescription(n) };

What I want to do is if I know the enum value (e.g. 1) - how can I retrieve the description? In other words, how can I convert an integer into an "Enum value" to pass to my GetDescription method?

Answer 1

int value = 1;
string description = Enumerations.GetEnumDescription((MyEnum)value);

The default underlying data type for an enum in C# is an int, you can just cast it.