using brackets to describe root classes in VB.Net - maybe?

[alan4cast]

I posted this in the VB forum several days ago, and got no reply. Since it's specific to VB.Net I thought I'd try it here. I'm a relatively-experienced VB programmer, but I'm still working on learning all of the .net things that I should know. So when I came across this one, I started to dig into it so see if I could figure it out...

Here's what I know about brackets - If they are used around a reserved word then that becomes a usable (escaped) name (i.e. Dim [String] as Integer). If they are used around a type in a DIM or NEW type statement then they're redundant and actually go away (i.e. Dim MyString as [String]).

Here's my problem:
There is at least one time in the documentation where brackets aren't used for escaping, nor do they seem to be redundant (an error occurs if they aren't there), but I can't seem to find documentation to tell me why they ARE needed (I hate it when I don't know WHY I should do things)!

Can anyone give me a reference where this is explained? Thanks!

Here's the code (Straight from the VS2005 help doc)
Confusing piece is on lines 13, 14, and 18 - "[Enum]"

  Public Class ParseTest
   Enum Colors
     Red = 1
     Green = 2
     Blue = 4
     Yellow = 8
   End Enum
 
   Public Shared Sub Main()
      Dim colorName As String
 
      Console.WriteLine("The entries of the Colors Enum are:")
      For Each colorName In [Enum].GetNames(GetType(Colors))
         Console.WriteLine("{0}={1}", colorName, Convert.ToInt32([Enum].Parse(GetType(Colors), colorName)))
      Next colorName
      Console.WriteLine()
 
      Dim myOrange As Colors = CType([Enum].Parse(GetType(Colors), "Red, Yellow"), Colors)
      Console.WriteLine("The myOrange value {1} has the combined entries of {0}", myOrange, Convert.ToInt64(myOrange))
   End Sub
End Class
 

(code is from http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/essfb559.aspx)

[Plater]

It almost looks like they're used to specifuy a typecast to a custom object (i.e. the custom enum of Colors you just made)
Or it might be similar to the Me. (or this. if you're in C#) like you suggested?

Have you tried running the code without the brackets?

[alan4cast]

Have you tried running the code without the brackets?

Sort of. Removing them gets an "Expression Expected" error.
(An operator such as + or = requires an expression for its right operand, but no recognizable expression appears.Error ID: BC30201)

It almost looks like they're used to specify a typecast to a custom object (i.e. the custom enum of Colors you just made)Or it might be similar to the Me.

I thought that it might be a custom class that's part of System... Actually, I just tried "System.Enum" instead of [Enum]... that worked with no error. So... does the bracket then look for an underlying version of an object, or does it relate to an imported class or...?

[Plater]

Well i'm not sure, BUT I have always wondered if it was possible to itterate through an enum, so that looks pretty cool there.

[alan4cast]

Well I'm not sure, BUT I have always wondered if it was possible to iterate through an enum, so that looks pretty cool there.

Looks like you can!

I actually found the code in question while trying to help with an XML-ish text file save methodology I'm using to restore the value of an enum based on a text string. (e.g. the "Parse" function shown above.

I'll go under the assumption that the brackets are used to refer to an underlying imported class type that is also a keyword. (Unless someone else tells me different!)

Thanks!

[Frinavale]

I'm looking into this more...it's something I don't know.
I just found out that if you type "enum" into the search function for the MSDN Library...it crashes...

But!
If you type [enum] for the search...
It doesn't crash

crazy...