Specifying type of an enum in C# fails

Question

I have an enum of type uint in my class and a function with a uint argument. But when I call that function (setColor) with an enum as argument, I get the error:

Error   3   Argument 1: cannot convert from 'Test.Form1.colors' to 'uint'

This is my class:

namespace Test{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        enum color : uint {off, red, yellow};


        setColor(uint color){
         ...
        }

        MyFunction()
        {
         setColor(color.red);
        }
    }
}

Sorry, miscopypasted my code. It was actually defined with `{}` — user3531722, May 06 '14 at 07:55
possible duplicate of [Get int value from enum](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/943398/get-int-value-from-enum) — sloth, May 06 '14 at 07:57
Is there any reason why your method can't take a `color` type parameter instead of `uint`? — John Willemse, May 06 '14 at 07:58

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 06 '14 at 08:05

You should read the documentation

The underlying type specifies how much storage is allocated for each enumerator. However, an explicit cast is necessary to convert from enum type to an integral type. For example, the following statement assigns the enumerator Sun to a variable of the type int by using a cast to convert from enum to int.

int x = (int)Days.Sun;

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 06 '14 at 07:54

1

Cast to uint and define the enum with {}.

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    enum color : uint {off, red, yellow};

    void setColor(uint color){

    }

    void MyFunction()
    {
        setColor((uint)color.red);
    }
}

edited May 06 '14 at 07:54

Tolga Evcimen

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answered May 06 '14 at 07:49

dave

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I did define it with {}. Copy paste error. Why do i have to cast it to `uint` when I explicitly defined it as `uint`? – user3531722 May 06 '14 at 07:53
1

From MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/es-es/library/sbbt4032.aspx: "The underlying type specifies how much storage is allocated for each enumerator. However, an explicit cast is necessary to convert from enum type to an integral type." – dave May 06 '14 at 08:04

Haseeb Asif · Answer 3 · 2014-05-06T09:24:00.463

1

enum mycolor : uint
{
    off, 
    red, 
    yellow
}

void setColor(mycolor color ){ }

void MyFunction()
{
    setColor(mycolor.red);
}

edited May 06 '14 at 09:24

answered May 06 '14 at 07:50

Haseeb Asif

1,766
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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 06 '14 at 07:54

0

This should work for you.

public partial class Form1: Form
{
    enum color : uint {off, red, yellow};


    void setColor(uint color){

    }

    void MyFunction()
    {
        setColor((uint)(color.red));
    }
}

answered May 06 '14 at 07:54

Yasser Shaikh

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Specifying type of an enum in C# fails

4 Answers4