Visual Basic 2015 Unleashed

Using Enums As Return Values from Methods

A common usage of enumerations is representing different results from methods that return a numeric value, as often happens for methods that return a number for communicating the result of the code. Consider the following code, which defines an enumeration that a method uses to communicate the result of a simple elaboration on a file:

Click here to view code image

Public Enum Result    Success = 0    Failed = 1    FileNotFound = 2End EnumPublic Function ElaborateFile(ByVal fileName As String) As Result    Try        Dim text As String = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllText(fileName)        'Do some work here on your string        Return Result.Success    Catch ex As IO.FileNotFoundException        Return ...