Smart Enums In C#

Context: we're dealing with distances in some way. Let's write some classes to express this.

class Distance
{
    public Distance(double value, DistanceUnit unit)
    {
        this.Value = value;
        this.Unit = unit;
    }

    public double Value { get; }
    public DistanceUnit Unit { get; }
}

enum DistanceUnit
{
    Miles,
    Kilometres,
}

We need to be able to convert between distances measured in different units. Let's add a method to the Distance class.

class Distance
{
    // ...

    public Distance Convert(DistanceUnit targetUnit)
    {
        return new Distance(
            this.Value * ConversionFactorToKilometres(this.Unit) / ConversionFactorToKilometres(targetUnit),
            targetUnit);
    }

    private double ConversionFactorToKilometres(DistanceUnit unit)
    {
        switch (unit)
        {
            case DistanceUnit.Miles:
                return 1.60934;
            case DistanceUnit.Kilometres:
                return 1;
            default:
                throw new System.ArgumentException();
        }
    }
}

This works, but it's a little clunky. Two things I don't like:

The conversion factor is a property of the unit itself, so it doesn't seem right that it's defined in the Distance class.
We have to deal with the fact that enums aren't quite type-safe; it's perfectly possible for someone to pass in (DistanceUnit)100, and so we need the exception.

Let's fix (1) by adding attributes to the enum:

class ConversionFactorToKilometresAttribute : Attribute
{
    public ConversionFactorToKilometresAttribute(double factor)
    {
        this.Factor = factor;
    }

    public double Factor { get; }
}

enum DistanceUnit
{
    [ConversionFactorToKilometres(1.60934)]
    Miles,
    [ConversionFactorToKilometres(1)]
    Kilometres,
}

class Distance
{
    // ...

    private double ConversionFactorToKilometres(DistanceUnit unit)
    {
        var attribute = (ConversionFactorToKilometresAttribute)typeof(DistanceUnit)
            .GetMember(unit.ToString())[0]
            .GetCustomAttributes(typeof(ConversionFactorToKilometresAttribute), false)
            .Single();
        return attribute.Factor;
    }
}

Great! The conversion factor is now defined in the DistanceUnit enum, which makes much more sense. Unfortunately we have added some reflection, which always gives me the heebie-jeebies, and we still don't cope with the possibility that the enum value isn't defined.

This is where the smart enum pattern comes in.

Let's replace the enum with a class with a small set of possible instances:

class DistanceUnit
{
    private DistanceUnit(double conversionFactorToKilometres)
    {
        this.ConversionFactorToKilometres = conversionFactorToKilometres;
    }

    public static DistanceUnit Miles { get; } = new DistanceUnit(1.60934);
    public static DistanceUnit Kilometres { get; } = new DistanceUnit(1);

    public double ConversionFactorToKilometres { get; }
}

class Distance
{
    // ...

    // TODO: inline this method
    private double ConversionFactorToKilometres(DistanceUnit unit)
    {
        return unit.ConversionFactorToKilometres;
    }
}

The private constructor ensures that instances of DistanceUnit can only be created from inside this class, and this only happens twice. In this way, it's very similar to an enum in that there's only a small set of options for the value.

In fact, calling it is very like an enum:

var distance = new Distance(100, DistanceUnit.Miles);

The one downside to this is that a variable of type DistanceUnit could be null, because it's a reference type. Ultimately this is a problem of C# rather than this pattern, and it's partially fixed by the nullable reference types feature of C# 8, released last week (note to self: start using C# 8).

Another example

(Disclaimer: this example is entirely lifted from a blog post by Jon Skeet.)

In our distance example, the "enum" values had properties but no behaviour. A slight variant is to have an abstract class, with nested derived classes defining the behaviour.

Here's an example.

public abstract class Operation
{
    private Operation()
    {
    }

    public static Operation Add { get; } = new AddOperation();
    public static Operation Subtract { get; } = new SubtractOperation();

    public abstract int Apply(int lhs, int rhs);

    private class AddOperation : Operation
    {
        public override int Apply(int lhs, int rhs)
        {
            return lhs + rhs;
        }
    }

    private class SubtractOperation : Operation
    {
        public override int Apply(int lhs, int rhs)
        {
            return lhs - rhs;
        }
    }
}

Note how the private constructor ensures no-one from outside the class can create an instance, in the same way as before.

This is the best way to use this pattern if your "enum" values need behaviour. It's up to you which fits your use case best.

Summary

Smart enums are a great way of adding state or behaviour to enums in C#. I wouldn't advocate using them for everything, but as soon as you add a switch statement on the value of an enum, you should consider whether defining that behaviour inside the type using this pattern would be better.

Another example

Summary

Further reading