Associating enums with strings in .Net

Unfortunately, the way to read the names of the Enum members is limited and it returns only the Enum Member name, not the description.

Enums are by nature a user-defined value type to represent a list of name integers There are also some constraints on how you can name the enumeration members Name of enumeration members can not:

be prefixed with the type name because type information is expected to be provided by development tools.
Be a numeric value, or even starting with a number

Ex. 123ABC is not allowed

Have spaces in the name.

Ex. United States of America is not allowed

Contains non-alphabet characters (and limited to the English Language)

The Description attribute decoration is used to define a descriptive name for a given property or event. The description decoration is defined under the System.ComponentModel Namespace Unfortunately, the way to read the names of the Enum members is limited and it returns only the Enum Member name, not the description.

Prerequisites

CodeHelper.Core.Extensions

Solution

Use the Description Attribute from the System.ComponentModel Namespace
use CodeHelper.Core.Extensions
Call the description with the Description() method

Example

The Countries Enum

using System.ComponentModel;

public enum Countries
    {
        [Description("United States of America")]        
        UnitedStates,
        [Description("Belgium, Belgie, Belgique")]
        Belgium,        
        France,       
    }

The Code

using CodeHelper.Core.Extensions;
var _usaDesc = Countries.UnitedStates.Description();
var _usaString = Countries.UnitedStates.ToString();
var _usaNumber = Countries.UnitedStates;

Result United States of America UnitedStates 0