How to add extension methods to Enums

I have this Enum code:

enum Duration { Day, Week, Month };

Can I add a extension methods for this Enum?

According to this site:

Extension methods provide a way to write methods for existing classes in a way other people on your team might actually discover and use. Given that enums are classes like any other it shouldn’t be too surprising that you can extend them, like:

enum Duration { Day, Week, Month };

static class DurationExtensions 
{
  public static DateTime From(this Duration duration, DateTime dateTime) 
  {
    switch (duration) 
    {
      case Day:   return dateTime.AddDays(1);
      case Week:  return dateTime.AddDays(7);
      case Month: return dateTime.AddMonths(1);
      default:    throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("duration");
    }
  }
}

I think enums are not the best choice in general but at least this lets you centralize some of the switch/if handling and abstract them away a bit until you can do something better. Remember to check the values are in range too.

You can read more here at Microsft MSDN.

You can also add an extension method to the Enum type rather than an instance of the Enum:

/// <summary> Enum Extension Methods </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"> type of Enum </typeparam>
public class Enum<T> where T : struct, IConvertible
{
    public static int Count
    {
        get
        {
            if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
                throw new ArgumentException("T must be an enumerated type");

            return Enum.GetNames(typeof(T)).Length;
        }
    }
}

You can invoke the extension method above by doing:

var result = Enum<Duration>.Count;

It's not a true extension method. It only works because Enum<> is a different type than System.Enum.

Of course you can, say for example, you want to use the DescriptionAttribue on your enum values:

using System.ComponentModel;

public enum Duration 
{ 
    [Description("Eight hours")]
    Day,

    [Description("Five days")]
    Week,

    [Description("Twenty-one days")] 
    Month 
}

Now you want to be able to do something like:

Duration duration = Duration.Week;
var description = duration.GetDescription(); // will return "Five days"

Your extension method GetDescription() can be written as follows:

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Reflection;

public static string GetDescription(this Enum value)
{
    FieldInfo fieldInfo = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());
    if (fieldInfo == null) return null;
    var attribute = (DescriptionAttribute)fieldInfo.GetCustomAttribute(typeof(DescriptionAttribute));
    return attribute.Description;
}

All answers are great, but they are talking about adding extension method to a specific type of enum.

What if you want to add a method to all enums like returning an int of current value instead of explicit casting?

public static class EnumExtensions
{
    public static int ToInt<T>(this T soure) where T : IConvertible//enum
    {
        if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
            throw new ArgumentException("T must be an enumerated type");

        return (int) (IConvertible) soure;
    }

    //ShawnFeatherly funtion (above answer) but as extention method
    public static int Count<T>(this T soure) where T : IConvertible//enum
    {
        if (!typeof(T).IsEnum)
            throw new ArgumentException("T must be an enumerated type");

        return Enum.GetNames(typeof(T)).Length;
    }
}

The trick behind IConvertible is its Inheritance Hierarchy see MDSN

Thanks to ShawnFeatherly for his answer

You can create an extension for anything, even object(although that's not considered best-practice). Understand an extension method just as a public static method. You can use whatever parameter-type you like on methods.

public static class DurationExtensions
{
  public static int CalculateDistanceBetween(this Duration first, Duration last)
  {
    //Do something here
  }
}

A Simple workaround.

public static class EnumExtensions
{
    public static int ToInt(this Enum payLoad) {

        return ( int ) ( IConvertible ) payLoad;

    }
}

int num = YourEnum.AItem.ToInt();
Console.WriteLine("num : ", num);

See MSDN.

public static class Extensions
{
  public static string SomeMethod(this Duration enumValue)
  {
    //Do something here
    return enumValue.ToString("D"); 
  }
}

we have just made an enum extension for c# https://github.com/simonmau/enum_ext

It's just a implementation for the typesafeenum, but it works great so we made a package to share - have fun with it

public sealed class Weekday : TypeSafeNameEnum<Weekday, int>
{
    public static readonly Weekday Monday = new Weekday(1, "--Monday--");
    public static readonly Weekday Tuesday = new Weekday(2, "--Tuesday--");
    public static readonly Weekday Wednesday = new Weekday(3, "--Wednesday--");
    ....

    private Weekday(int id, string name) : base(id, name)
    {
    }

    public string AppendName(string input)
    {
        return $"{Name} {input}";
    }
}

I know the example is kind of useless, but you get the idea ;)