In this blog, we will see how to convert an int to an enum and from an enum to an int using C#.

What is int?

int is a keyword that is used to declare a variable that can store an integral type of value (signed integer) the range from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. It is an alias of the System.Int32.

What is Enum?

An enum is a special value type that enables a variable to be a set of predefined constants. To define an enumeration type, we can use the enum the keyword as shown below,

enum Colour
{
    Red,
    Blue,
    Green,
    Pink,
    White
}

How to convert int to an enum in C#?

If we don’t want to lose information during conversion, we will use explicit conversion complier require that you perform conversion of data type which is called a cast.

 In this example, we will explicitly cast an int to the enum as shown below,

Colour colour1, colour2, colour3;
// Casting to enum from an int
colour1 = (Colour)2;
colour2 = (Colour)4;
colour3 = (Colour)1;

How to convert an enum to int in C#?

In this example, we will explicitly cast an enum to int as shown below,

// Cating to int from an enum
int colorCode1 = (int)Colour.Red;
int colorCode2 = (int)Colour.White;
int colorCode3 = (int)Colour.Green;

Code Snippet:

using System;
namespace StreamWriterSample
{
    class Program
    {
        // Define Enum
        enum Colour
        {
            Red = 1,
            Blue = 2,
            Green = 3,
            Pink = 4 ,
            White = 5
        }
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {                       
            // Casting to enum from an int
            Colour colour1 = (Colour)2;
            Colour colour2 = (Colour)4;            
            Colour colour3 = (Colour)1;
            // Print values
            Console.WriteLine("Cast int to enum:");
            Console.WriteLine(colour1);
            Console.WriteLine(colour2);
            Console.WriteLine(colour3);

            // Cating to int from an enum
            int colorCode1 = (int)Colour.Red;
            int colorCode2 = (int)Colour.White;
            int colorCode3 = (int)Colour.Green;
            // Print values
            Console.WriteLine("Cast enum to int:");
            Console.WriteLine(colorCode1);
            Console.WriteLine(colorCode2);
            Console.WriteLine(colorCode3);
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

Output: 

Cast int to enum:
Blue
Pink
Red
Cast enum to int:
1
5
3