Enums and Attributes

[rohancragg]

I can't for the life of me work out (or find samples on) how to read back the attribute of an entry in an Enum, for example: Public Enum Colours <Description="Bright Red"> BrightRed = 0 <Description="Brilliant Yellow"> BrightYellow = 1 <Description="Puce"> Horrible = 2 End Enum I know it has something to do with Reflection, but that doesnt seem to help :confused: Ultimately I want to write a function to able to do something like GetDescription(GetType(Colours)) Thanks, ro.

[dynamic]

you mean something like this : VB:

---

Public Enum Colours
BrightRed = 0
BrightYellow = 1
Horrible = 2
End Enum

Private Sub Button1\_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim c As Colours
    MessageBox.Show(GetColours(c.BrightRed))
End Sub

Public Function GetColours(ByVal i As Integer) As String
    Dim clr As Colours
    Select Case i '/// numerical value of the colour.
        Case clr.BrightRed
            Return "you chose BrightRed" '/// show the colour you chose.
        Case clr.BrightYellow
            Return "you chose BrightYellow"
        Case clr.Horrible
            Return "you chose Horrible"
    End Select

End Function

---

hope that helps a little:)

---

Private void ExpectingTwins(string twins)
{
switch(twins)
{
Case ("twins on the way"):
MessageBox.Show("for mr and mrs dynamic","twins on the way");
break;
}
}

---

[Matt Casto]

The following function should work for you ... Imports System.ComponentModel Imports System.Reflection Private Function GetContentTypeValue(ByVal value As Colours) As String      Dim fi As FieldInfo = value.GetType.GetField(value.ToString)      Dim attributes As DescriptionAttribute() = CType(fi.GetCustomAttributes(GetType(DescriptionAttribute), False), DescriptionAttribute())      If attributes.Length > 0 Then           Return attributes(0).Value      Else           Return String.Empty      End If End Function