Kijana Woodard

Software Minimalism


Why Enums Suck

Monday, May 10, 2010

I inherited some code at work that made use of enums. I happily continued the pattern in order to get the job done considering the tight deadline. My spidey sense kept tingling telling me something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The code I started with was pretty standard stuff.

There was an enum:

enum CarType
{
    Slow,
    Fast,
    Lightning
}

There was a class that used the enum:

class Car
{
    public Guid Id { get; private set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public CarType CarType { get; set; }

    public Car() { Id = Guid.NewGuid(); }
}        

There was some List creation:

var cars = new List<Car>()
{
    new Car() { Name = "Yugo", CarType = CarType.Slow },
    new Car() { Name = "M3", CarType = CarType.Fast },
    new Car() { Name = "Tesla Roadster", CarType = CarType.Lightning }
};

And then there was branching logic on the enum. This is where the trouble began:

foreach (var car in cars)
{
    switch (car.CarType)
    {
        case CarType.Slow:
            DoSlowCarStuff();           
            break;
        case CarType.Fast:
            DoFastCarStuff();
            break;
        case CarType.Lightning:
            DoLightningCarStuff();
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}        

This code was smelly and I was adding more of it. I really didn’t understand what I didn’t like, but I wanted to do something different.

I decided to use extension methods.

public static class CarTypeExtensionMethods
{
    public static void DoCarStuff(this CarType type)
    {
        switch (type)
        {
            case CarType.Slow:
                DoSlowCarStuff();
                break;
            case CarType.Fast:
                DoFastCarStuff();
                break;
            case CarType.Lightning:
                DoLightningCarStuff();
                break;
            default:
                break;
        }
    }

    static void DoSlowCarStuff() { }
    static void DoFastCarStuff() { }
    static void DoLightningCarStuff() { }
}        

So now my consuming code looked like this:

foreach (var car in cars)
    car.CarType.DoCarStuff(); 

Ahhhh. Now that’s bliss. All the car type junk was packaged together and the calling code is dead simple.

But something still felt…wrong. The big “switches” were all gone, but I still had some “if (carType ==” statements lying around. I could put those in the extension methods, but that wasn’t really the root issue.

I went to the Big G and typed something like “c# alternatives to enums”. Somewhere along the line I stumbled on this post about comparing c# enums to java enums.

At first, I thought, this looks like a ton more code to write for little gain. But it felt like the right direction. I decided to just write it and see what happened.

class CarType
{
    public static readonly CarType Slow = new CarType()
    {
        _display = "Slow",
        _dostuff = () =>
        {
            //do slow car stuff
        }
    };

    public static readonly CarType Fast = new CarType()
    {
        _display = "Fast",
        _dostuff = () =>
        {
            //do fast car stuff
        }
    };

    public static readonly CarType Lightning = new CarType()
    {
        _display = "Lightning",
        _dostuff = () =>
        {
            //do lightning car stuff
        }
    };

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return _display;
    }

    public void DoCarStuff()
    {
       _dostuff();
    }
    private CarType() { }
    private string _display;
    private Action _dostuff;
}        

And suddenly the real problem with the original code was obvious. Switch/If blocks were littered everywhere through the program. If you added a new CarType, you’d have to hunt through the entire application updating the switch/if logic.

The extension method class was better in that the code was all in one class, but you still had to go through and update it all.

Now, when you create a new “enum” type, all the logic is done right there. Even typing up this blog post I smiled when I didn’t have to change my Car class or the consuming code that called DoCarStuff(). I can add CarTypes at will, knowing I don’t have to change any other code.

Enums are still useful when all they do is identity. As soon as you start branching on enums, switch to a class. You’ll thank me later.

So by now, you might be thinking, congratulations, you’ve discovered the strategy pattern. I get that. However, I find it useful to think about solving concrete problems like getting rid of branching code on enums by using proper classes. It’s the same thing, but if I just said, “use the strategy pattern”, a lot of people, myself included, would leave the blog post less informed.

Finally, I know some of you might think that this code is terrible:

car.CarType.DoCarStuff();        

I realize that Car should probably define DoCarStuff and not expose it’s CarType, but this was the first example I could think of and I figured I’d write the post instead of trying to think of the perfect example.

Thoughts?



If you see a mistake in the post *or* you want to make a comment, please submit an edit.

You can also contact me and I'll post the comment.

13 Comments...
Joey Guerra
Joey Guerra • 14 years ago

The strategy pattern was exactly what I was thinking. And I totally agree with you on that point, I learned something. Thanks.

F
F • 13 years ago

Congratulations, you've re-invented inheritance!

kijana
kijana • 13 years ago

Congratulations, you (nearly) understood the post!

I didn't "re-invent inheritance", I'm *utilizing* classes to solve a particular type of problem instead of using magic strings or enums. The whole point of the post is that you should bias towards leaning on OO instead of enums.

Mohamed Elmalky
Mohamed Elmalky • 12 years ago

Thank you for this gem of an idea. Makes code much cleaner.

Yuri Vaillant
Yuri Vaillant • 12 years ago

Thanks, you helped me make my argument complete.

Diogo Castro
Diogo Castro • 11 years ago

1) you overlooked the simplest and best solution for your scenario: inheritance. You should extend Car and let each class have its own implementation of DoCarStuff
2) that's not the strategy pattern, and that breaks about a dozen of design principles, like the open closed principle and the law of Demeter for example.
3) Enums don't suck. Whoever wrote the original code clearly doesn't know *when* to use them - he's the problem.

Kijana Woodard
Kijana Woodard • 11 years ago

Three years later, I'm still not thrilled with the code above, but the general idea is the same: don't use enums to drive behavior, use classes. I think we agree on that much.

Diogo Castro
Diogo Castro • 11 years ago

Definitely! That's a good lesson to take from this. I also agree with you when you say that enums are good for identification. "LogLevel" is a classical example.

will
will • 10 years ago

well this looks like the place to rant enums not only suck they go back in time to the days of
ill return whatever i feel like, after fiddling with this
i just decided to write my own class its not even worth the time, its broken and backwards

// first how can we infer a return type i cant even manually new
// myenum[] ve = myenum[4]{};
// ya ok whatever
// so get values really gets myenums array with some random spoofed names in it now ?

var ve = (myenum[])Enum.GetValues(typeof(myenum));
for (int i = 0; i < ve.Length; i++)
{
Console.Write(ve[i] + " ");
}
Console.WriteLine("\n so do i hate hate you no thats just what it assumed");
// so now to undo what they did , you have to do it like this cause
// you need a totally separate method to actually get back what you put in
var ne = Enum.GetNames(typeof(myenum));
for (int i = 0; i < ne.Length; i++)
{
Console.Write(ne[i] + " ");
}
// output
//I hate hate you
// no
//I love hate you
// and god forbid you want to generically pass it to a method(enum t, forget it

will
will • 10 years ago

[Flags]
public enum myenum
{
I = 0,
love = 1,
hate = 1,
you = 2
}

will
will • 10 years ago

oh ya i almost forgot you dont declare it static you cant
but you can call it in a static method from outside the method
even though you cant pass it to a method
how is any of that sensable or clear
and this is recommended really

Kijana Woodard
Kijana Woodard • 10 years ago

Indeed. F# discriminated unions look to be a better alternative. https://fsharpforfunandprofit.c...

ling maaki
ling maaki • 10 years ago

More about c# enum...C# Enum

Ling