Enum is a keyword which was introduced in Java 5. It is a particular type of class whose instances are only those objects which are members of that enum. The super class of all enum objects is java.lang.Enum, apart from this enum can not be extended.
There is another important feature that is every enum requires support from the class library. When a program compiles and compiler encounters an enum type, it generates a class that extends the java.lang.Enum, which is a library class.
Here we try to illustrate the use of enum through a simple example, in which enum works as special class named "Names" with many instances. After that we enumerate all the possible values for a variable of enum type like Chandan, Ashish, Amar, Tamana via loop. Which is displayed by the object of "Names" named "count".
Here is the Code of the Example :
In the above example enum declaration generates a special class "Names", which automatically implements the Comparable<Names> and Serializable interfaces, and provides several members including:
Static variables in above example are Chandan, Ashish, Amar and Tamana.
Static method in above example is values() that retrieves the values included in enum.
Static method valueOf(String) returns the appropriate enum for the string passed in.
Appropriately overloaded equals(), hasCode(), toString(), and compareTo() methods.
This approach has many advantages including
Posted on: June 10, 2009 If you enjoyed this post then why not add us on Google+? Add us to your Circles