How Can We Auto-Generate Database-Driven Enums to Eliminate Manual Updates?

Automating Enum Creation from Database Lookup Tables

Maintaining consistent enums that reflect database lookup tables is a common developer challenge. Manual updates are error-prone and time-consuming. This article presents a fully automated solution for dynamically generating enums from database data.

This automated approach avoids the need for manual code generation. A dedicated console application, "EnumeratedTypes," is designed to fetch data from the database, create the enums, and output the results as a reusable assembly ("MyEnums.dll").

The core process involves iterating through database rows. For each row, the application creates an enum literal using the database row's name and key. The resulting assembly provides access to these dynamically generated enums in other projects. Crucially, Intellisense support remains fully functional.

To ensure seamless integration, a post-build event is configured within the "EnumeratedTypes" project. This automatically generates "MyEnums.dll" after every build. Other projects can then reference this assembly, eliminating the need for manual updates.

This automated system streamlines enum management, guaranteeing that your enums always accurately reflect the current database values.

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