C# Enums – Handling NULL Values – Some Tips

 

As a  C# developer, we work with Enums in almost every project and use them in variety of ways.

The Enum values could be defined in the database, or they could be part of an API.  However, once we have the string value, we want to use them as Enum and perform our tasks.

Problem :

What to do if the string value is not equivalent to one of the pre-defined Enum Values

Approach :

To solve these problems, .NET framework provides methods

In .NET 4 and above, you can use Enum.TryParse<T> generic method to convert a string into an Enum

If the parsed value is not equivalent to one of the Enum values, you could return a null and then check for null every where in the code before using this Enum.

Consider the following Enum

 

 /// <summary>
 /// Direction Enum
 /// </summary>
 public enum Direction
 {
 /// <summary>
 /// NORTH direction
 /// </summary>
 NORTH = 1,
 /// <summary>
 /// SOUTH Direction
 /// </summary>
 SOUTH = 2,
 /// <summary>
 /// EAST Direction
 /// </summary>
 EAST = 3,
 /// <summary>
 /// WEST Direciton
 /// </summary>
 WEST = 4
 
 }

This is a very simple Direction Enum and expected values are 4 known directions.

Consider we are building a console application and asking user to input one the direction and then trying to convert it into one of our Enum with following function

 

 /// Parse the input  Enum value
 /// </summary>
 /// <param name="input"></param>
 /// <returns></returns>
 private static Direction ParseInput(string input)
 {
 if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(input))
 return null;

 if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(input))
 return null;

 Direction direction;
 if (Enum.TryParse<Direction>(input.ToUpper(), out direction))
 {
 return direction;
 }

return null;

 }

 

This is absolutely fine piece of code, which will return you correct Enum value otherwise it will return null.

But whenever this function will be called in rest of the project, you have to check for the ‘null’ value exception all the time

Something like

var direction = ParseInput(Console.ReadLine())

if (direction != null)
{
  //then your logic  
}

 

How about adding an extra Enum to your class as NONE and returning it instead of the ‘null’ value?

 

Your updated Enum would be

 

 /// <summary>
 /// Direction Enum
 /// </summary>
 public enum Direction
 {
 /// <summary>
 /// NORTH direction
 /// </summary>
 NORTH = 1,
 /// <summary>
 /// SOUTH Direction
 /// </summary>
 SOUTH = 2,
 /// <summary>
 /// EAST Direction
 /// </summary>
 EAST = 3,
 /// <summary>
 /// WEST Direciton
 /// </summary>
 WEST = 4,
 /// <summary>
 /// NONE direction
 /// </summary>
 NONE = 99

 
 }

 

And your updated function would be

/// <summary>
 /// Parse the input  Enum value
 /// </summary>
 /// <param name="input"></param>
 /// <returns></returns>
 private static Direction ParseInput(string input)
 {
 if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(input))
 return Direction.NONE;

 if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(input))
 return Direction.NONE;

 Direction direction;
 if (Enum.TryParse<Direction>(input.ToUpper(), out direction))
 {
 return direction;
 }

return Direction.NONE;

 }

This approach would solve your the problem of checking for ‘null’ value all over the project and you can simply use a switch() statement every time this function is called.

Thanks !