Get enum from enum attribute

Question

I've got

public enum Als 
{
    [StringValue("Beantwoord")] Beantwoord = 0,
    [StringValue("Niet beantwoord")] NietBeantwoord = 1,
    [StringValue("Geselecteerd")] Geselecteerd = 2,
    [StringValue("Niet geselecteerd")] NietGeselecteerd = 3,
}

with

public class StringValueAttribute : Attribute
{
    private string _value;

    public StringValueAttribute(string value)
    {
        _value = value;
    }

    public string Value
    {
        get { return _value; }
    }
}

And I would like to put the value from the item I selected of a combobox into a int:

int i = (int)(Als)Enum.Parse(typeof(Als), (string)cboAls.SelectedValue); //<- WRONG

Is this possible, and if so, how? (the StringValue matches the value selected from the combobox).

Answer 1

Here's a helper method that should point you in the right direction.

protected Als GetEnumByStringValueAttribute(string value)
{
    Type enumType = typeof(Als);
    foreach (Enum val in Enum.GetValues(enumType))
    {
        FieldInfo fi = enumType.GetField(val.ToString());
        StringValueAttribute[] attributes = (StringValueAttribute[])fi.GetCustomAttributes(
            typeof(StringValueAttribute), false);
        StringValueAttribute attr = attributes[0];
        if (attr.Value == value)
        {
            return (Als)val;
        }
    }
    throw new ArgumentException("The value '" + value + "' is not supported.");
}

And to call it, just do the following:

Als result = this.GetEnumByStringValueAttribute<Als>(ComboBox.SelectedValue);

This probably isn't the best solution though as it's tied to Als and you'll probably want to make this code re-usable. What you'll probably want to strip out the code from my solution to return you the attribute value and then just use Enum.Parse as you are doing in your question.