How Can I Improve Enum Readability by Using Custom Descriptions?

Boosting Enum Readability: Using Custom Descriptions

A previous discussion covered assigning descriptive names to enum values. To elaborate:

While the example enum contains values with spaces and periods, enum names must follow specific naming conventions—typically single words without punctuation or spaces.

For more user-friendly enum values, leverage the Description attribute. This attribute lets you add a descriptive string to each enum member, significantly improving code clarity.

Here's a helpful extension method to easily retrieve these descriptions:

public static string GetDescription(this Enum value)
{
    Type type = value.GetType();
    string name = Enum.GetName(type, value);
    if (name != null)
    {
        FieldInfo field = type.GetField(name);
        if (field != null)
        {
            DescriptionAttribute attr = 
                   Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(field, 
                     typeof(DescriptionAttribute)) as DescriptionAttribute;
            if (attr != null)
            {
                return attr.Description;
            }
        }
    }
    return null;
}

This method simplifies accessing the description of any enum value. See the example below:

public enum MyEnum
{
    [Description("Description for Foo")]
    Foo,
    [Description("Description for Bar")]
    Bar
}

MyEnum x = MyEnum.Foo;
string description = x.GetDescription();

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