April 21, 2004
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More .NET Stupidities: Enum::Parse()
Today I got totally pissed off by M$’s brilliant software
engineering again, while working with enum objects in C++ .NET. If you
are a C++ programmer, one of the things you must have encountered is
the conversion/casting of a string to an enumerated type. In .NET, M$
implements an absolutely stupid way of string-to-enum conversion,
through the Enum::Parse() function. Basically, you expect to just pass
the function a string and the custom enum type as parameters then get
back an enum value in return. WRONG!!!3 Major Stupidities:
1. You need to make sure your enum type is a garbage collected
object, by specifying “__value” when you declared the enum type (e.g.
“__value enum fruits {apple, orange, banana, 1337fruit};”2. You need to specify “__typeof” for your enum type in the argument
list of Enum::Parse() because .NET is stupid and doesn’t realize that
you’re trying to give it an enumerated type though you are using a
function in the Enum namespace (duh!).3. Worst of all: the returned value of the Enum::Parse() function is
not even going to be in your custom enum type, it’s the generic garbage
collected Object*!!! You have to do “*dynamic_cast” like this:some_enum_type enum_var = *dynamic_cast<__box(some_enum_type)>(Enum::Parse(__typeof(some_enum_type), some_string));
Now, if that is not retarded, I don’t know what is.
- SwordAngel
