I have a little tip for you. Let’s say you have an enumeration. You need a enumeration constant out of string variable. simply use System.Enum.Parse(). Here a small Snippet Compiler source code. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; public class MyClass { public enum FooBar { Foo, Bar, FooBar } public static void Main() { WL(FooBarFactory("Foo")); RL(); } public static FooBar FooBarFactory(string init) { try { return (FooBar)System.Enum.Parse(typeof(FooBar), init); } catch { // Do something throw; } } #region Helper methods private static void WL(object text, params object[] args) { Console.WriteLine(text.ToString(), args); } private static void RL() { Console.ReadLine(); } private static void Break() { System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break(); } #endregion }