TryParse of Enum is working, but I think it shouldn't

Question

I have the following Enum (which is generated from a xsd):

[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "4.0.30319.17929")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://www.ebutilities.at/invoice/02p00")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("Sector", Namespace = "http://www.ebutilities.at/invoice/02p00", IsNullable = false)]public enum    
SectorType
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("01")]
    Item01,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("02")]
    Item02,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("03")]
    Item03,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("04")]
    Item04,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("05")]
    Item05,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("06")]
    Item06,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("07")]
    Item07,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("08")]
    Item08,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("09")]
    Item09,
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlEnumAttribute("99")]
    Item99,
}

So I want to parse a string to SectorType:

string s = "88";
SectorType sectorType;
bool result = Enum.TryParse(s, out sectorType);

After this my sectorType is "88" and result is true. So the conversion succeeded. Also this is working fine:

SectorType sectorType = (SectorType)Enum.Parse(typeof (SectorType), "88")

Value of sectorType is 88.

Here's a picture from the debugger:

MSDN provides following information:

Enum.TryParse Method

Converts the string representation of the name or numeric value of one or more enumerated constants to an equivalent enumerated object. The return value indicates whether the conversion succeeded.

Obviously there is no equivalent enumerated object (88 (or whatever number) != Item01,..., Item09, Item99).

I was thinking Enums are strongly-typed (see dotnetperls/enums). It says:

We see that enums are strongly-typed. You cannot assign them to just any value.

But clearly in my example, i could assign any number to my SectorType-Enum and I really don't know why this is working...

See it running at .NET Fiddle.

Answer 1

From the MSDN page for Enum.TryParse<TEnum>(string value, ...):

If value is the string representation of an integer that does not represent an underlying value of the TEnum enumeration, the method returns an enumeration member whose underlying value is value converted to an integral type. If this behavior is undesirable, call the IsDefined method to ensure that a particular string representation of an integer is actually a member of TEnum.