Getting the max value of an enum
This is slightly nitpicky but the actual maximum value of any enum
is Int32.MaxValue
(assuming it's a enum
derived from int
). It's perfectly legal to cast any Int32
value to an any enum
regardless of whether or not it actually declared a member with that value.
Legal:
enum SomeEnum
{
Fizz = 42
}
public static void SomeFunc()
{
SomeEnum e = (SomeEnum)5;
}
According to Matt Hamilton's answer, I thought on creating an Extension method for it.
Since ValueType
is not accepted as a generic type parameter constraint, I didn't find a better way to restrict T
to Enum
but the following.
Any ideas would be really appreciated.
PS. please ignore my VB implicitness, I love using VB in this way, that's the strength of VB and that's why I love VB.
Howeva, here it is:
C#:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
MyEnum x = GetMaxValue<MyEnum>(); //In newer versions of C# (7.3+)
MyEnum y = GetMaxValueOld<MyEnum>();
}
public static TEnum GetMaxValue<TEnum>()
where TEnum : Enum
{
return Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum)).Cast<TEnum>().Max();
}
//When C# version is smaller than 7.3, use this:
public static TEnum GetMaxValueOld<TEnum>()
where TEnum : IComparable, IConvertible, IFormattable
{
Type type = typeof(TEnum);
if (!type.IsSubclassOf(typeof(Enum)))
throw new
InvalidCastException
("Cannot cast '" + type.FullName + "' to System.Enum.");
return (TEnum)Enum.ToObject(type, Enum.GetValues(type).Cast<int>().Last());
}
enum MyEnum
{
ValueOne,
ValueTwo
}
VB:
Public Function GetMaxValue _
(Of TEnum As {IComparable, IConvertible, IFormattable})() As TEnum
Dim type = GetType(TEnum)
If Not type.IsSubclassOf(GetType([Enum])) Then _
Throw New InvalidCastException _
("Cannot cast '" & type.FullName & "' to System.Enum.")
Return [Enum].ToObject(type, [Enum].GetValues(type) _
.Cast(Of Integer).Last)
End Function
Enum.GetValues() seems to return the values in order, so you can do something like this:
// given this enum:
public enum Foo
{
Fizz = 3,
Bar = 1,
Bang = 2
}
// this gets Fizz
var lastFoo = Enum.GetValues(typeof(Foo)).Cast<Foo>().Last();
Edit
For those not willing to read through the comments: You can also do it this way:
var lastFoo = Enum.GetValues(typeof(Foo)).Cast<Foo>().Max();
... which will work when some of your enum values are negative.
I agree with Matt's answer. If you need just min and max int values, then you can do it as follows.
Maximum:
Enum.GetValues(typeof(Foo)).Cast<int>().Max();
Minimum:
Enum.GetValues(typeof(Foo)).Cast<int>().Min();