C# Iterating through an enum? (Indexing a System.A

Question

I have the following code:

// Obtain the string names of all the elements within myEnum 
String[] names = Enum.GetNames( typeof( myEnum ) );

// Obtain the values of all the elements within myEnum 
Array values = Enum.GetValues( typeof( myEnum ) );

// Print the names and values to file
for ( int i = 0; i < names.Length; i++ )
{
    print( names[i], values[i] ); 
}

However, I cannot index values. Is there an easier way to do this?

Or have I missed something entirely!

Answer 1

Here is another. We had a need to provide friendly names for our EnumValues. We used the System.ComponentModel.DescriptionAttribute to show a custom string value for each enum value.

public static class StaticClass
{
    public static string GetEnumDescription(Enum currentEnum)
    {
        string description = String.Empty;
        DescriptionAttribute da;

        FieldInfo fi = currentEnum.GetType().
                    GetField(currentEnum.ToString());
        da = (DescriptionAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(fi,
                    typeof(DescriptionAttribute));
        if (da != null)
            description = da.Description;
        else
            description = currentEnum.ToString();

        return description;
    }

    public static List<string> GetEnumFormattedNames<TEnum>()
    {
        var enumType = typeof(TEnum);
        if (enumType == typeof(Enum))
            throw new ArgumentException("typeof(TEnum) == System.Enum", "TEnum");

        if (!(enumType.IsEnum))
            throw new ArgumentException(String.Format("typeof({0}).IsEnum == false", enumType), "TEnum");

        List<string> formattedNames = new List<string>();
        var list = Enum.GetValues(enumType).OfType<TEnum>().ToList<TEnum>();

        foreach (TEnum item in list)
        {
            formattedNames.Add(GetEnumDescription(item as Enum));
        }

        return formattedNames;
    }
}

In Use

 public enum TestEnum
 { 
        [Description("Something 1")]
        Dr = 0,
        [Description("Something 2")]
        Mr = 1
 }



    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        var vals = StaticClass.GetEnumFormattedNames<TestEnum>();
    }

This will end returning "Something 1", "Something 2"