Article
11/18/2011

Type.IsEnum Property

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

Gets a value indicating whether the current Type represents an enumeration.

Namespace: System
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
Public ReadOnly Property IsEnum As Boolean

public bool IsEnum { get; }

Property Value

Type: System.Boolean
true if the current Type represents an enumeration; otherwise, false.

Remarks

This property returns true for an enumeration, but not for the Enum type itself.

If the current Type represents a constructed generic type, this property applies to the generic type definition from which the type was constructed. For example, if the current Type represents MyGenericType<int> (MyGenericType(Of Integer) in Visual Basic), the value of this property is determined by MyGenericType<T>.

If the current Type represents a type parameter in the definition of a generic type or generic method, this property always returns false.

This property is read-only.

Examples

The following example demonstrates how to use the IsEnum property.

Note:
To run this example, see Building Examples That Use a Demo Method and a TextBlock Control.


Public Enum Color
   Red
   Blue
   Green
End Enum 'Color
Class Example
   Public Shared Sub Demo(ByVal outputBlock As System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock)
      Dim colorType As Type = GetType(Color)
      Dim enumType As Type = GetType([Enum])
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Color an enum? {0}.", colorType.IsEnum) & vbCrLf
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Color a value type? {0}.", colorType.IsValueType) & vbCrLf
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Enum an enum type? {0}.", enumType.IsEnum) & vbCrLf
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Enum a value type? {0}.", enumType.IsValueType) & vbCrLf
   End Sub 'Main
End Class 'TestType

using System;
public enum Color
{
   Red, Blue, Green
}
class Example
{
   public static void Demo(System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock outputBlock)
   {
      Type colorType = typeof(Color);
      Type enumType = typeof(Enum);
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Color an enum? {0}.", colorType.IsEnum) + "\n";
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Color a value type? {0}.", colorType.IsValueType) + "\n";
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Enum an enum Type? {0}.", enumType.IsEnum) + "\n";
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("Is Enum a value type? {0}.", enumType.IsValueType) + "\n";
   }
}

This code produces the following output:

Is Color an enum? True.
Is Color a value type? True.
Is Enum an enum type? False.
Is Enum a value type? False.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Silverlight for Windows Phone

Supported in: Windows Phone OS 7.1, Windows Phone OS 7.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: Xbox 360, Windows Phone OS 7.0

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.

Share via