ardalis / ardalis/SmartEnum

Revert PR 412 and remove support for null values.

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Dominant language
C#
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Description

The premise of this library is that it can extend the built-in enum types in .NET, but still, it will mimic the behavior of the enum types. SmartEnums even though defined as classes, they're extended to offer value-type behavior.

This [PR](https://github.com/ardalis/SmartEnum/pull/412) enables creating a SmartEnum with a null value. This breaks the assumed contract and leads to various inconsistencies. For instance, we can no longer guarantee that SmartEnum can be used as dictionary keys.

```csharp
var types = new Dictionary();

types.Add(CustomerType.One, new()); // Will throw

public class CustomerType : SmartEnum
{
public static CustomerType One = new CustomerType("One", null);
public static CustomerType Two = new CustomerType("Two", "two");
protected CustomerType(string name, string value) : base(name, value) { }
}
```

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reviewing PR 412 and the SmartEnum value-handling entry points it changed. Restore the non-null value contract described in the issue and verify that a SmartEnum with a null value cannot be created and can safely be used as a dictionary key.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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