title: What's the best way to provide localization for Enums?
body: <p>I'm writting a multi-lingual application that uses many enums, and I'd like to achieve the following objectives:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Display Enum names as localized strings                        </li>
  <li>Provide localized descriptions using attributes                </li>
  <li>Enable language sensitive parsing of enums back to int values  </li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I'm keen to to decorate the enum using attributes + a resource file, such that the localized strings can be reached from run-time type info. I've been down the route before of declaring a static class with static members <em>instead of</em> an enum, but this presented as many problems as it solved.</p>
  
  <p>Is some sort of a TypeDescriptor based mechanism appropriate? Or even possible?</p>
  
  <p>Moreover - how does one accomplish goal #3 in a clean, generic, re-usable manner?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>Since asking this question, I've completed the open source library that needed localizable enum displays. I went with the technique of implementing TypeConverters. Full source available at <a href="http://measures.codeplex.com/" rel="nofollow">http://measures.codeplex.com/</a> </p>