Extension methods on Enums?

by Jun 7, 2024Shorts

Extension methods on Enums?

Do you sometimes feel restricted by the Enum type in C#? You want to give it a little bit extra behavior by adding a method?

Currently you can’t add extension methods to Enums.

Some other programming languages do offer this capability which gives Enum more power and usefulness.

In C# 13 a new type will be added: Extension types.

They look very promising. It’s basically a complete redesign of Extension methods. You can apply the to any type in C#! Beside methods, properties and other members are also possible. And they can be instance or static!

They bring in more the functional way of writing code into C#. Just like in Go, you can create a type that just represents data and then use the new Extension type to decorate it with functions.

You can also create new ‘alias’ types based on an existing type with additional behavior, just like in F#. A better way then using inheritance in OOP.

A new interesting way to program is being added to C#. What do you think?

Remy van Duijkeren

Remy van Duijkeren

The Marketing Developer

I build automation and integrations that remove the annoying stuff—using Power Platform, Dynamics 365 & Azure.

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