Search for a string in Enum and return the Enum

I have an enumeration:

public enum MyColours
{
Red,
Green,
Blue,
Yellow,
Fuchsia,
Aqua,
Orange
}

and I have a string:

string colour = "Red";

I want to be able to return:

MyColours.Red

from:

public MyColours GetColour(string colour)

------------
So far i have:

public MyColours GetColours(string colour)
{
string[] colours = Enum.GetNames(typeof(MyColours));
int[] values = Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyColours));
int i;
for(int i = 0; i < colours.Length; i++)
{
if(colour.Equals(colours[i], StringComparison.Ordinal)
break;
}
int value = values[i];
// I know all the information about the matched enumeration
// but how do i convert this information into returning a
// MyColour enumeration?
}

As you can see, I'm a bit stuck. Is there anyway to select an enumerator by value. Something like:

MyColour(2)

would result in

MyColour.Green

You can use `Enum.Parse` to get an enum value from the name. You can iterate over all values with `Enum.GetNames`, and you can just cast an int to an enum to get the enum value from the int value.

Like this, for example:

public MyColours GetColours(string colour)
{
foreach (MyColours mc in Enum.GetNames(typeof(MyColours))) {
if (mc.ToString().Contains(colour)) {
return mc;
}
}
return MyColours.Red; // Default value
}

or:

public MyColours GetColours(string colour)
{
return (MyColours)Enum.Parse(typeof(MyColours), colour, true); // true = ignoreCase
}

The latter will throw an ArgumentException if the value is not found, you may want to catch it inside the function and return the default value.

All you need is [Enum.Parse][1].


[1]:

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check out System.Enum.Parse:

<pre>
<code>
enum Colors {Red, Green, Blue}

// your code:
Colors color = (Colors)System.Enum.Parse(typeof(Colors), "Green");
</code>
</pre>

You can cast the int to an enum

(MyColour)2

There is also the option of Enum.Parse

(MyColour)Enum.Parse(typeof(MyColour), "Red")

As mentioned in previous answers, you can cast directly to the underlying datatype (int -> enum type) or parse (string -> enum type).

but beware - there is no .TryParse for enums, so you WILL need a try/catch block around the parse to catch failures.