How to save enum in database as string in C#

How to save enum in database as string in C#

Enums in C# can be saved as strings in a database by using an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) library or by manually converting the enum values to strings before storing them in the database.

If you are using an ORM library, such as Entity Framework or NHibernate, you can map the enum property to a string column in the database by using the EnumToStringConverter class provided by the ORM library. Here's an example using Entity Framework:

public enum Gender
{
    Male,
    Female,
    Other
}

public class Person
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public Gender Gender { get; set; }
}

public class MyContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Person> People { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity<Person>()
            .Property(p => p.Gender)
            .HasConversion<string>();
    }
}

In the above example, the Gender enum property of the Person class is mapped to a string column in the database using the HasConversion<string>() method. This method tells Entity Framework to use the EnumToStringConverter class to convert the enum value to a string before storing it in the database.

If you are not using an ORM library, you can manually convert the enum values to strings before storing them in the database. Here's an example using ADO.NET:

public enum Gender
{
    Male,
    Female,
    Other
}

public class Person
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public Gender Gender { get; set; }
}

public class MyDatabase
{
    private readonly string connectionString;

    public MyDatabase(string connectionString)
    {
        this.connectionString = connectionString;
    }

    public void SavePerson(Person person)
    {
        using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
        {
            SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("INSERT INTO People (Name, Gender) VALUES (@Name, @Gender)", connection);
            command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Name", person.Name);
            command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Gender", person.Gender.ToString());
            connection.Open();
            command.ExecuteNonQuery();
        }
    }
}

In the above example, the Gender enum value of the Person class is converted to a string using the ToString() method before being stored in the Gender column of the People table in the database.

Note that when reading the enum values back from the database, you will need to convert the string values back to their corresponding enum values using the Enum.Parse() method or a similar method.

Examples

  1. "C# store enum as string in database"

    • Description: Learn how to save an enum as a string in a database column in C# to improve readability and ease of maintenance.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to store enum as string in database
public enum Status { Active, Inactive, Pending }

[Column(TypeName = "nvarchar(20)")]
public string StatusAsString { get; set; }

  2. "C# entity framework enum to string mapping"

    • Description: Understand how to use Entity Framework in C# to map an enum to a string column in the database.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to map enum to string column in Entity Framework
public class YourEntity
{
    public Status Status { get; set; }

    [Column(TypeName = "nvarchar(20)")]
    public string StatusAsString
    {
        get => Status.ToString();
        set => Status = (Status)Enum.Parse(typeof(Status), value);
    }
}

  3. "C# enum serialization to database as string"

    • Description: Learn how to serialize an enum to a string for storage in a database using serialization/deserialization techniques.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to serialize enum to string for database storage
public enum Status { Active, Inactive, Pending }

string statusAsString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Status.Active);
Status status = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Status>(statusAsString);

  4. "C# enum string conversion for database"

    • Description: Explore methods to convert between enum values and their string representations for database storage in C#.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to convert enum to string and vice versa for database
public enum Status { Active, Inactive, Pending }

string statusAsString = Enum.GetName(typeof(Status), Status.Active);
Status status = (Status)Enum.Parse(typeof(Status), statusAsString);

  5. "C# code-first enum as string in database"

    • Description: Understand how to use Code-First approach in Entity Framework to save an enum as a string in a database column.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code-first approach to store enum as string in database
public class YourEntity
{
    public Status Status { get; set; }

    [Column(TypeName = "nvarchar(20)")]
    public string StatusAsString { get; set; }
}

  6. "C# enum attribute for database storage"

    • Description: Learn how to use attributes or annotations to specify database storage details for an enum in C#.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to use attribute for database storage of enum
public enum Status
{
    [Column("ActiveStatus")]
    Active,

    [Column("InactiveStatus")]
    Inactive,

    [Column("PendingStatus")]
    Pending
}

  7. "C# enum string mapping with Dapper"

    • Description: Explore how to map an enum to a string column in a database using Dapper in C#.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to map enum to string column using Dapper
var status = connection.QueryFirstOrDefault<Status>("SELECT StatusAsString FROM YourTable WHERE Id = @Id", new { Id = 1 });

  8. "C# enum to string mapping with NHibernate"

    • Description: Explore how to map an enum to a string column in a database using NHibernate in C#.
    • Code Implementation:
      // Code to map enum to string column using NHibernate
Map(x => x.StatusAsString).CustomType<YourEnumTypeAsString>();

More Tags

hsv ansi-sql xamarin-studio y2k adobe-animate validationrules datatables datatable pgrouting google-font-api

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