How to generate random color names in C#

Use Enum.GetValue to retrieve the values of the KnownColor enumeration and get a random value:

Random randomGen = new Random();
KnownColor[] names = (KnownColor[]) Enum.GetValues(typeof(KnownColor));
KnownColor randomColorName = names[randomGen.Next(names.Length)];
Color randomColor = Color.FromKnownColor(randomColorName);

Take a random value and get from KnownColor enum.

May be by this way:

System.Array colorsArray = Enum.GetValues(typeof(KnownColor));
KnownColor[] allColors = new KnownColor[colorsArray.Length];

Array.Copy(colorsArray, allColors, colorsArray.Length);
// get a randon position from the allColors and print its name.

Ignore the fact that you're after colors - you really just want a list of possible values, and then take a random value from that list.

The only tricky bit then is working out which set of colors you're after. As Pih mentioned, there's KnownColor - or you could find out all the public static properties of type Color within the Color structure, and get their names. It depends on what you're trying to do.

Note that randomness itself can be a little bit awkward - if you're selecting multiple random colors, you probably want to use a single instance of Random`. Unfortunately it's not thread-safe, which makes things potentially even more complicated. See my article on randomness for more information.


Sounds like you just need a random color from the KnownColor enumeration.


Or you could try out this: For .NET 4.5

public Windows.UI.Color GetRandomColor()
{
            Random randonGen = new Random();
            Windows.UI.Color randomColor = 
                Windows.UI.Color.FromArgb(
                (byte)randonGen.Next(255), 
                (byte)randonGen.Next(255),
                (byte)randonGen.Next(255), 
                (byte)randonGen.Next(255));
            return randomColor;
}