Here's the solution I plan to go with. Not only does this work with non-sequential integers, but it should work with any other data type you may want to use as the underlying id for your enum values.
public Enum MyEnum {
THIS(5),
THAT(16),
THE_OTHER(35);
private int id; // Could be other data type besides int
private MyEnum(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public int getId() {
return this.id;
}
public static Map<Integer, MyEnum> buildMap() {
Map<Integer, MyEnum> map = new HashMap<Integer, MyEnum>();
MyEnum[] values = MyEnum.values();
for (MyEnum value : values) {
map.put(value.getId(), value);
}
return map;
}
}
I only need to convert id's to enums at specific times (when loading data from a file), so there's no reason for me to keep the Map in memory at all times. If you do need the map to be accessible at all times, you can always cache it as a static member of your Enum class.