InfiniteEnumFlags 0.1.0

InfiniteEnumFlags

The dotnet enum flags feature is amazing, but it is too limited 🙁. InfiniteEnumFlags is the same without limitation. 😊

Introduction

Dotnet Enum has an [Flags] attribute that gives us the ability to have a binary enum system and use bitwise operators. However, enum specifically restricts to built-in numeric types which is a big problem because it is limited to 2^32 for int values which means we only can have a maximum of 32 items in our enum or 2^64 for long which limits us to a maximum of 64 items.

this library aims to remove these restrictions and still give us the same functionality.

Getting started

After installing the InfiniteEnumFlags NuGet package, there are several ways to use this package. I start with the easiest one.

Define your enum flags

1. using source generator (Recommended)

To define your enum, you must create a partial class and extend it using IArrayFlags or IIndexDictionaryFlags and Implement the Items function that returns a list of strings.

IArrayFlagse.g.

public partial class YourCustomEnumName : IArrayFlags
{
    public string[] Items() => new[]
    {
    //  Name -- Value - Index - Bits 
        "F1",  // 1   -   0   - 0001
        "F2",  // 2   -   1   - 0010
        "F3",  // 4   -   2   - 0100
        "F4",  // 8   -   3   - 1000
    };
}

In this example, F1-F4 are the enum items that give you binary sequence values using the source generator.

Note: remember, the item's order when using IArrayFlags is Important

after creating this class the below code will be generated in the background that you can use to work with your Enums.

public partial class YourCustomEnumName
{
    public const int TOTAL_ITEMS = 4;
    public static readonly EnumItem None = new(0, TOTAL_ITEMS);
    public static readonly EnumItem All = ~None;
    public static readonly EnumItem F1 = new(1, TOTAL_ITEMS);
    public static readonly EnumItem F2 = new(2, TOTAL_ITEMS);
    public static readonly EnumItem F3 = new(3, TOTAL_ITEMS);
    public static readonly EnumItem F4 = new(4, TOTAL_ITEMS);
}

You can use the IIndexDictionaryFlags instead of IArrayFlags if you wanna take control of the item's order and values.

IIndexDictionaryFlagse.g

public partial class TestIndexDictionaryFlags : IIndexDictionaryFlags
{
    public Dictionary<string, int> Items() => new()
    {
      // Name, Order     Index - Value - Bits
        { "F1", 2 }, //    2   -   4   - 100
        { "F2", 0 }, //    0   -   1   - 001
        { "F3", 1 }  //    1   -   2   - 010
    };
}

2. Manual

In the previous example we saw the generated code using source generator. The second way of creating Enums is to manually create this class which gives us the same functionality. but I believe it is harder to manage.

Usage

To use your custom enum, it is important to be familiar with the built-in dotnet enum flags capabilities because the functionalities are almost identical. for example we can use all bitwise operators (|,&,~,^) in our custom enum.

e.g

var features = YourCustomEnumName.F1 | YourCustomEnumName.F3;  // (+) F1 + F3 

Support

• Don't forget to give a ⭐ on GitHub
• Share your feedback and ideas to improve this tool
• Share InfiniteEnumFlags on your favorite social media and your friends
• Write a blog post about InfiniteEnumFlags

Contribution

Feel free to send me a pull request!

License

MIT