Why enums are needed in C Sharp (C#) - See It in Action

Why enums are needed

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are building a simple program to track the days of the week for a calendar app. You want to store and use days like Monday, Tuesday, and so on.

🎯 Goal: You will create a program that uses an enum to represent days of the week. This will help you understand why enums are useful for grouping related named values.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an enum called DayOfWeek with all seven days as named values

Create a variable called today and set it to DayOfWeek.Wednesday

Write a switch statement using today to print a message for the day

Print the message to the console

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Enums are used in many programs to represent fixed sets of options, like days, colors, or states.

💼 Career

Understanding enums helps you write clear and maintainable code, a skill valued in software development jobs.

1

Create the enum DayOfWeek

Create an enum called DayOfWeek with these exact values: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

C Sharp (C#)

// Define the enum DayOfWeek here
// Your code here

Need a hint?

An enum groups related named values. Use the enum keyword followed by the name and curly braces with the days inside.

2

Create a variable today of type DayOfWeek

Create a variable called today of type DayOfWeek and set it to DayOfWeek.Wednesday.

C Sharp (C#)

enum DayOfWeek
{
    Monday,
    Tuesday,
    Wednesday,
    Thursday,
    Friday,
    Saturday,
    Sunday
}

// Create the variable today and set it to DayOfWeek.Wednesday
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the enum name as the type and assign the value with the enum name and dot notation.

3

Use a switch statement to print a message for today

Write a switch statement using the variable today. For DayOfWeek.Wednesday, print "It's Wednesday, midweek!". For other days, print "It's not Wednesday.".

C Sharp (C#)

enum DayOfWeek
{
    Monday,
    Tuesday,
    Wednesday,
    Thursday,
    Friday,
    Saturday,
    Sunday
}

DayOfWeek today = DayOfWeek.Wednesday;

// Write a switch statement on today to print the messages
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use switch with case for Wednesday and default for other days. Use System.Console.WriteLine to print.

4

Run the program to see the output

Run the program and print the message from the switch statement to the console.

C Sharp (C#)

enum DayOfWeek
{
    Monday,
    Tuesday,
    Wednesday,
    Thursday,
    Friday,
    Saturday,
    Sunday
}

DayOfWeek today = DayOfWeek.Wednesday;

switch (today)
{
    case DayOfWeek.Wednesday:
        System.Console.WriteLine("It's Wednesday, midweek!");
        break;
    default:
        System.Console.WriteLine("It's not Wednesday.");
        break;
}

// The output is already printed by the switch cases
// Your code here if needed

Need a hint?

Running the program should print the message for Wednesday.