Useful Things to Know, #424

This is an oldie I've been meaning to post for years.

Assume a variable n  of an enumerated type t.  Let's say t has the traditional values Red, Blue, and Green. 

n.ToString("g") produces a string equal to the name of the enumeration value:  Green.
n.ToString("d") produces a string equal to the underlying value of the enumeration:  2.

Plain n.ToString() acts like n.ToString("g")

Why is this useful to remember?  Because if you ever have to build a filter string in the form "ColorId = value", and your value is an instance of an enumeration, you can build the string like so: 

string filter = String.Format("ColorId = {0:d}", n);

I've seen people handle this a number of ways, including casting back to Int32 and so forth, but this is definitely the shortest, tidiest way.