Can I Assign Friendly Names to Enum Members in C#?

Can C# enums use friendly names?

As you discovered, C# enumeration members can only have literal names, with underscores as delimiters. However, there is a way to assign a "friendly name" to your enumeration.

Solution: Description attribute

You can use the DescriptionAttribute attribute to provide a friendlier description for each enumeration member. Here is an extension method that simplifies retrieving descriptions:

<code class="language-csharp">public static string GetDescription(this Enum value)
{
    Type type = value.GetType();
    string name = Enum.GetName(type, value);
    FieldInfo field = type.GetField(name);
    DescriptionAttribute attr = Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(field, typeof(DescriptionAttribute)) as DescriptionAttribute;
    return attr != null ? attr.Description : null;
}</code>

Usage:

Apply DescriptionAttribute to each enum member and provide the desired friendly name:

<code class="language-csharp">public enum MyEnum
{
    [Description("此名称有效")]
    ThisNameWorks,
    [Description("此名称无效")]
    ThisNameDoesntWork,
    [Description("这个也不行")]
    NeitherDoesThis
}</code>

To retrieve friendly names:

<code class="language-csharp">MyEnum x = MyEnum.ThisNameWorks;
string description = x.GetDescription();</code>

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