What are the types of enum in C#?

 

In C#, there are three different types of enums available:

1. Numeric Enums: Numeric enums are the most common type of enum in C#. They associate a set of named constants with underlying numeric values. The underlying type can be any integral type (byte, sbyte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, or ulong). If you don't specify an underlying type explicitly, the default is int.

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public enum NumericEnum : byte
{
    Value1 = 1,
    Value2 = 2,
    Value3 = 3
}

2. String Enums: String enums were introduced in C# 10 (.NET 7). They allow you to define an enum where the underlying type is string. This can be useful in scenarios where you need to work with string-based representations rather than numeric values.

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public enum StringEnum : string
{
    Value1 = "One",
    Value2 = "Two",
    Value3 = "Three"
}

3. Flags Enums: Flags enums are used when you want to represent combinations or sets of options as bit flags. This allows you to perform bitwise operations on the enum values. To create a flags enum, you need to decorate it with the [Flags] attribute and assign each enum value a unique power of 2 (or use the << operator).

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[Flags]
public enum FlagsEnum
{
    None = 0,
    Option1 = 1,
    Option2 = 2,
    Option3 = 4,
    Option4 = 8
}

Flags enums can be combined using bitwise OR (|) and checked for the presence of specific flags using bitwise AND (&) or the HasFlag method.

These are the three types of enums in C#: numeric enums, string enums (from C# 10), and flags enums. Each type serves a specific purpose and allows you to define enums with different underlying types and behaviors.