C# regarding enum methods

[firm fiasco]

Hey everybody I'm new to C# and I'm having a few issues. I'm currently doing an assignment for school and I'm really stuck on this part. I've staring at it and googling things for hours and I'm having any luck. I have included below what I have so far.

The directions aren't that good.

"Create a public enum CharacterState for the 4 image states: Attacking, Defending, Idle, and Dead. Now create a member variable state to hold the character state and a public property State with a get and set. For now, fill in the default behavior of get and set to return/set the value of state."

Any help would be greatly appeciated! Thank you

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Windows.Media; namespace WPFBattle {    class CharacterImage: System.Windows.Controls.Image    {        public enum Attacking{        }        public enum Defending{        }        public enum Idle{        }        public enum Dead{        }        public ImageSource IdleImageSource { get; set; }        public ImageSource AttackingImageSource { get; set; }        public ImageSource TakeDamageImageSource { get; set; }        public ImageSource DeadImageSource { get; set; }        protected void UpdateImageSource()        {            switch (State)            {                case CharacterState.Attacking:                    this.Source = AttackingImageSource;                    break;                case CharacterState.TakeDamage:                    this.Source = TakeDamageImageSource;                    break;                case CharacterState.Dead:                    this.Source = DeadImageSource;                    break;                case CharacterState.Idle:                default:                    this.Source = IdleImageSource;                    break;            }        }        protected override void OnRender(DrawingContext dc)        {            UpdateImageSource();            base.OnRender(dc);        }        public CharacterState State        {            get { return state; }            set            {                state = value;                this.Dispatcher.Invoke((Action)(() =>                {                    UpdateImageSource();                }));            }        }    } }

[Claude Moore]

Generally speaking (and in my own opinion), when dealing with school assignments it's better to keep yourself focused on the relevant task the assignment is about. For example, I presume you tried to provide a different Image for a game character, but that's not necessary for your task.
Worst error in your code is that  you are creating four different enumerations, not a single enumeration with four possibily states.
Instead, you should have a single enumeration type and a private variable to keep track  of character's status.

For example:

namespace SampleApplication
{
    enum CharacterStatus
    {
        IDLE ,DEFENDING, ATTACKING, DEAD
    }

    class PlayCharacter
    {
        private CharacterStatus _status = CharacterStatus.IDLE;

        public CharacterStatus Status
        {
            set   {
                _status = value;
                printStatus();
            }
            get   {
                return _status;
            }
        }

        private void printStatus()
        {
            switch(_status)
            {
                case CharacterStatus.ATTACKING: Console.WriteLine(" The character is attacking "); break;
                //and so on...
            }
        }

    }
}

Honestly I think you should review C# enum usage.

Hope it helps !

[Claude Moore]

For JavaRanch moderators: what about moving this thread on C# and .NET forum ?