A Beginner's Guide to Java Enums

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

An Enum in Java is a special data type that encompasses a set of predefined constants. When setting a variable of that Enum type, you have to use one of the constants that you define for it. A great example is the compass:

public enum Compass {
  NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST;
}

Compass direction = Compass.NORTH;

In the above example, we create a new enum and it’s predefined set of constants. Then we create a variable of that enum type, and assign it to one of the constants. Keep in mind that we can only set our direction to Compass.NORTH, Compass.SOUTH, Compass.EAST , Compass.WEST or null. If we wanted to set our direction to an inter-cardinal direction, we’ll have to add them to our enum, like so:

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A Beginner's Guide to Java Enums