Composite enums

[ghost]

It would be great to have a composite enums. What do you think about this idea?

enum Color {
    Blue {
        CadetBlue,
        SkyBlue,
        Turquoise
    },
    Red,
    Green
}

It would be great to just write (with intellisense): var x = Color.Blue.SkyBlue

Currently I often use enums like BlueCadet, BlueSky, BlueTurquoise because I am lazy and want Visual Studio to quickly offer exactly what I do want.

edit: I program automata with many states which I like to be compile constants. That's reason why I have enums with a lot of values and very similar names. It is nearly impossible to distinguish them and something like "folders" would help. I want to recycle some names and composite enums would be an option.

edit: I would also like to write something like: case Blue in switch. That could be just copying of the code from Blue case into Blue.CadetBlue, etc.

edit: It would be also possible to do nothing with enums and introduce something like groups. It could look like:

group Blue from Color {
    CadetBlue,
    SkyBlue,
    Turquoise
}

It would be possible to access for example Blue.SkyBlue like an equivalent of Color.SkyBlue. Also it would be possible to write:

Color a = ...
switch(a) {
    case Blue:
    ...
}

[MkazemAkhgary]

I like your query style syntax for enums, that's something to think about in wider use cases...

[kxxt]

Good idea!
I love it!😃😃😃

[Joe4evr]

And how do you propose this is represented under the covers? How will the compiler know which enum values have sub-values and which don't to provide accurate IntelliSense? What kind of code will the compiler spit out for your case of case Blue matching all the sub-values of Blue?

These are questions you need to provide an answer for.

[aluanhaddad]

I like the idea of nested enums.

[lillo42]

I like the idea too

[bondsbw]

Not the same but related: #587