Obtaining Enumeration Names and Values in Silverlight 2.0

In .NET, when you are dealing with singular enumerations (the ones singular names) or flags enumerations (the ones with plural names), you have the ability to access the names and values of each of the items in the enumeration.  For example, the below code iterates through and prints out both the values and names of the enumeration items:

using System;
//+
namespace Sample
{
    public enum Component
    {
        Keyboard,
        Mouse,
        Display,
        Disk,
        Memory,
        Network
    }

    public class Program
    {
        //- $Main -//
        private static void Main(String[] args)
        {
            //+ name
            foreach (String name in Enum.GetNames(typeof(Component)))
            {
                Console.WriteLine(name);
            }
            //+ value
            foreach (Object value in Enum.GetValues(typeof(Component)))
            {
                Console.WriteLine((Int32)value);
            }
        }
    }
}

Now let’s go to do the same thing in Silverlight 2.0.

Err... wait a minute.  Where’s GetNames and GetValues?  Well, they don’t exist.  Fortunately, we have the ability to access these via reflection.  To obtain the names, we just need to obtain the Type object of our enumeration and call GetFields with the Public and Static binding flags set, and look in the resulting FieldInfo array.  Each FieldInfo object will have a Name property without item name.  For the values, we simply use Enum.Parse to turn that name into the actual value.  For the underlying value, we can just cast that to the underlying type of the enumeration.  In the example above, that would be System.Int32.  Here’s all that in action:

 

//- $OnLoaded -//
private void OnLoaded(Object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Type enumType = typeof(Component);
    System.Reflection.FieldInfo[] fiArray = enumType.GetFields(System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Public | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Static);
    foreach (System.Reflection.FieldInfo fi in fiArray)
    {
        //+ name
        sp01.Children.Add(new TextBlock
        {
             Text = fi.Name
        });
    }
    foreach (System.Reflection.FieldInfo fi in fiArray)
    {
        //+ value
        sp01.Children.Add(new TextBlock
        {
            Text = ((Int32)Enum.Parse(enumType, fi.Name, false)).ToString()
        });
    }
}

I’ve left the namespaces of the items in the System.Reflection namespace in place so you can see exactly what types were working with here.

Of course, you can always wrap this up into it’s own class so you can reuse this logic all over:

namespace Themelia
{
    public class EnumReader
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the names of an enumeration type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerationType">Type of enumeration.</param>
        /// <returns>List of names of the enumeration.</returns>
        public static List<String> GetNameList(Type enumType)
        {
            if (!enumType.IsEnum)
            {
                throw new InvalidOperationException("Specified generic parameter must be an enumeration.");
            }
            List<String> nameList = new List<String>();
            //+ type
            FieldInfo[] fiArray = enumType.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);
            foreach (FieldInfo fi in fiArray)
            {
                nameList.Add(fi.Name);
            }
            //+
            return nameList;
        }

        //- @GetNameList -//
        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the names of an enumeration type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="T">Type of enumeration.</typeparam>
        /// <returns>List of names of the enumeration.</returns>
        public static List<String> GetNameList<T>() where T : struct
        {
            return GetNameList(typeof(T));
        }

        //- @GetValueList -//
        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the values of an enumeration type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="T">Type of enumeration.</typeparam>
        /// <returns>List of values of the enumeration.</returns>
        public static List<T> GetValueList<T>() where T : struct
        {
            Type enumType = typeof(T);
            if (!enumType.IsEnum)
            {
                throw new InvalidOperationException("Specified generic parameter must be an enumeration.");
            }
            List<T> valueList = new List<T>();
            FieldInfo[] fiArray = enumType.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);
            foreach (FieldInfo fi in fiArray)
            {
                valueList.Add((T)Enum.Parse(enumType, fi.Name, false));
            }
            //+
            return valueList;
        }
    }
}

In this example class, you can see that two of the methods are actually declared as generic.  So, to use them like this:

//- $OnLoaded -//
private void OnLoaded(Object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    foreach (String name in EnumReader.GetNameList<Component>())
    {
        //+ name
        sp01.Children.Add(new TextBlock
        {
            Text = name
        });
    }
    foreach (Component component in EnumReader.GetValueList<Component>())
    {
        //+ value
        sp01.Children.Add(new TextBlock
        {
            Text = ((Int32)component).ToString()
        });
    }
}

One thing to keep in mind is that reflection does have a performance hit.  However, given that most of WPF, Silverlight, and WCF are all about constant reflection, you can rest comfortably that it’s not nearly as bad as some people would say.  Having said that, if your application profiling does say that you are reflecting too much, you can always cache the data returned from these method and access the cache instead.  Don’t however, cache for the sake of caching.  Saying “We’re always going to cache, just to be consistent” is as stupid as saying “We’re always going to drive 45mph, just to be consistent.”  This kills people on both the interstate and in school zones.  Make your caching decisions (and ALL other decisions!) based upon your current situation never upon dangerous mindless consistency.