Descriptive Enumerations In C#

I had the desire to create an enumeration in C# the other day and I wanted to be able to attach a description to each item in the enumeration. I did the searching on the internets and put together examples from several sources that I found. Here is an example that ties it all together in a Windows Console applicaton in C#.

using System;
using System.Reflection;

namespace DescriptiveEnums
{
  ///
  /// Create the custom Attribute named Description
  ///
  public class DescriptionAttribute : Attribute
  {
    public String StringValue { get; protected set; }
    public DescriptionAttribute(String value)
    {
      this.StringValue = value;
    }
  }

  ///
  /// Attach a method ToDescriptionString to our enumeration that enables us
  /// to get the value of our custom Description attribute.
  ///
  public static class MyCustomEnumerationExtensions
  {
    public static String ToDescriptionString(this MyCustomEnumeration value)
    {
      // Get the type
      Type type = value.GetType();

      // Get fieldinfo for this type
      FieldInfo fieldInfo = type.GetField(value.ToString());

      // Get the Description attributes
      DescriptionAttribute[] attributes =
        fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false) as DescriptionAttribute[];

      // Return the first if there was a match
      return attributes.Length > 0 ? attributes[0].StringValue : String.Empty;
    }
  }

  ///
  /// Enumeration for demonstration
  ///
  public enum MyCustomEnumeration
  {
    [Description("Item One Description")]
    ITEM_ONE,
    [Description("Item Two Description")]
    ITEM_TWO,
    [Description("Item Three Description")]
    ITEM_THREE
  }

  ///
  /// Main program to test functionality
  ///
  class Program
  {
    ///
    /// Main program - Just prints out the values of the enumeration items
    ///
    ///

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      // Create an instance of our enumeration and print to the console
      MyCustomEnumeration myEnum = MyCustomEnumeration.ITEM_ONE;
      Console.WriteLine(myEnum.ToDescriptionString());

      // Did you know you could increment an enumeration? Sure you did!
      myEnum++;
      Console.WriteLine(myEnum.ToDescriptionString());
      myEnum++;
      Console.WriteLine(myEnum.ToDescriptionString());
    }
  }
}