[java] What are enums and why are they useful?

Today I was browsing through some questions on this site and I found a mention of an enum being used in singleton pattern about purported thread safety benefits to such solution.

I have never used enums and I have been programing in Java for more than couple a years now. And apparently they changed a lot. Now they even do full blown support of OOP within themselves.

Now why and what for should I use enum in day to day programming?

Enum inherits all the methods of Object class and abstract class Enum. So you can use it's methods for reflection, multithreading, serilization, comparable, etc. If you just declare a static constant instead of Enum, you can't. Besides that, the value of Enum can be passed to DAO layer as well.

Here's an example program to demonstrate.

public enum State {

    Start("1"),
    Wait("1"),
    Notify("2"),
    NotifyAll("3"),
    Run("4"),
    SystemInatilize("5"),
    VendorInatilize("6"),
    test,
    FrameworkInatilize("7");

    public static State getState(String value) {
        return State.Wait;
    }

    private String value;
    State test;

    private State(String value) {
        this.value = value;
    }

    private State() {
    }

    public String getValue() {
        return value;
    }

    public void setCurrentState(State currentState) {
        test = currentState;
    }

    public boolean isNotify() {
        return this.equals(Notify);
    }
}

public class EnumTest {

    State test;

    public void setCurrentState(State currentState) {
        test = currentState;
    }

    public State getCurrentState() {
        return test;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(State.test);
        System.out.println(State.FrameworkInatilize);
        EnumTest test=new EnumTest();
        test.setCurrentState(State.Notify);
        test. stateSwitch();
    }

    public void stateSwitch() {
        switch (getCurrentState()) {
        case Notify:
            System.out.println("Notify");
            System.out.println(test.isNotify());
            break;
        default:
            break;
        }
    }
}

I would use enums as a useful mapping instrument, avoiding multiple if-else provided that some methods are implemented.

public enum Mapping {

    ONE("1"),
    TWO("2");

    private String label;

    private Mapping(String label){
        this.label = label;
    }

    public static Mapping by(String label) {

        for(Mapping m: values() {
            if(m.label.equals(label)) return m;
        }

        return null;
    }

}

So the method by(String label) allows you to get the Enumerated value by non-enumerated. Further, one can invent mapping between 2 enums. Could also try '1 to many' or 'many to many' in addition to 'one to one' default relation

In the end, enum is a Java class. So you can have main method inside it, which might be useful when needing to do some mapping operations on args right away.

Something none of the other answers have covered that make enums particularly powerful are the ability to have template methods. Methods can be part of the base enum and overridden by each type. And, with the behavior attached to the enum, it often eliminates the need for if-else constructs or switch statements as this blog post demonstrates - where enum.method() does what originally would be executed inside the conditional. The same example also shows the use of static imports with enums as well producing much cleaner DSL like code.

Some other interesting qualities include the fact that enums provide implementation for equals(), toString() and hashCode() and implement Serializable and Comparable.

For a complete rundown of all that enums have to offer I highly recommend Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java 4th edition which devotes an entire chapter to the topic. Particularly illuminating are the examples involving a Rock, Paper, Scissors (i.e. RoShamBo) game as enums.

Enum? Why should it be used? I think it's more understood when you will use it. I have the same experience.

Say you have a create, delete, edit and read database operation.

Now if you create an enum as an operation:

public enum operation {
    create("1")
    delete("2")
    edit("3")
    read("4")

    // You may have is methods here
    public boolean isCreate() {
        return this.equals(create);
    }
    // More methods like the above can be written

}

Now, you may declare something like:

private operation currentOperation;

// And assign the value for it 
currentOperation = operation.create

So you can use it in many ways. It's always good to have enum for specific things as the database operation in the above example can be controlled by checking the currentOperation. Perhaps one can say this can be accomplished with variables and integer values too. But I believe Enum is a safer and a programmer's way.

Another thing: I think every programmer loves boolean, don't we? Because it can store only two values, two specific values. So Enum can be thought of as having the same type of facilities where a user will define how many and what type of value it will store, just in a slightly different way. :)

What is an enum

• enum is a keyword defined for Enumeration a new data type. Typesafe enumerations should be used liberally. In particular, they are a robust alternative to the simple String or int constants used in much older APIs to represent sets of related items.

Why to use enum

• enums are implicitly final subclasses of java.lang.Enum
• if an enum is a member of a class, it's implicitly static
• new can never be used with an enum, even within the enum type itself
• name and valueOf simply use the text of the enum constants, while toString may be overridden to provide any content, if desired
• for enum constants, equals and == amount to the same thing, and can be used interchangeably
• enum constants are implicitly public static final

Note

• enums cannot extend any class.
• An enum cannot be a superclass.
• the order of appearance of enum constants is called their "natural order", and defines the order used by other items as well: compareTo, iteration order of values, EnumSet, EnumSet.range.
• An enumeration can have constructors, static and instance blocks, variables, and methods but cannot have abstract methods.

In my opinion, all the answers you got up to now are valid, but in my experience, I would express it in a few words:

Use enums if you want the compiler to check the validity of the value of an identifier.

Otherwise, you can use strings as you always did (probably you defined some "conventions" for your application) and you will be very flexible... but you will not get 100% security against typos on your strings and you will realize them only in runtime.

Why use any programming language feature? The reason we have languages at all is for

1. Programmers to efficiently and correctly express algorithms in a form computers can use.
2. Maintainers to understand algorithms others have written and correctly make changes.

Enums improve both likelihood of correctness and readability without writing a lot of boilerplate. If you are willing to write boilerplate, then you can "simulate" enums:

public class Color {
    private Color() {} // Prevent others from making colors.
    public static final Color RED = new Color();
    public static final Color AMBER = new Color();
    public static final Color GREEN = new Color();
}

Now you can write:

Color trafficLightColor = Color.RED;

The boilerplate above has much the same effect as

public enum Color { RED, AMBER, GREEN };

Both provide the same level of checking help from the compiler. Boilerplate is just more typing. But saving a lot of typing makes the programmer more efficient (see 1), so it's a worthwhile feature.

It's worthwhile for at least one more reason, too:

Switch statements

One thing that the static final enum simulation above does not give you is nice switch cases. For enum types, the Java switch uses the type of its variable to infer the scope of enum cases, so for the enum Color above you merely need to say:

Color color = ... ;
switch (color) {
    case RED:
        ...
        break;
}

Note it's not Color.RED in the cases. If you don't use enum, the only way to use named quantities with switch is something like:

public Class Color {
    public static final int RED = 0;
    public static final int AMBER = 1;
    public static final int GREEN = 2;
}

But now a variable to hold a color must have type int. The nice compiler checking of the enum and the static final simulation is gone. Not happy.

A compromise is to use a scalar-valued member in the simulation:

public class Color {
    public static final int RED_TAG = 1;
    public static final int AMBER_TAG = 2;
    public static final int GREEN_TAG = 3;

    public final int tag;

    private Color(int tag) { this.tag = tag; } 
    public static final Color RED = new Color(RED_TAG);
    public static final Color AMBER = new Color(AMBER_TAG);
    public static final Color GREEN = new Color(GREEN_TAG);
}

Now:

Color color = ... ;
switch (color.tag) {
    case Color.RED_TAG:
        ...
        break;
}

But note, even more boilerplate!

Using an enum as a singleton

From the boilerplate above you can see why an enum provides a way to implement a singleton. Instead of writing:

public class SingletonClass {
    public static final void INSTANCE = new SingletonClass();
    private SingletonClass() {}

    // all the methods and instance data for the class here
}

and then accessing it with

SingletonClass.INSTANCE

we can just say

public enum SingletonClass {
    INSTANCE;

    // all the methods and instance data for the class here
}

which gives us the same thing. We can get away with this because Java enums are implemented as full classes with only a little syntactic sugar sprinkled over the top. This is again less boilerplate, but it's non-obvious unless the idiom is familiar to you. I also dislike the fact that you get the various enum functions even though they don't make much sense for the singleton: ord and values, etc. (There's actually a trickier simulation where Color extends Integer that will work with switch, but it's so tricky that it even more clearly shows why enum is a better idea.)

Thread safety

Thread safety is a potential problem only when singletons are created lazily with no locking.

public class SingletonClass {
    private static SingletonClass INSTANCE;
    private SingletonClass() {}
    public SingletonClass getInstance() {
        if (INSTANCE == null) INSTANCE = new SingletonClass();
        return INSTANCE;
    }

    // all the methods and instance data for the class here
}

If many threads call getInstance simultaneously while INSTANCE is still null, any number of instances can be created. This is bad. The only solution is to add synchronized access to protect the variable INSTANCE.

However, the static final code above does not have this problem. It creates the instance eagerly at class load time. Class loading is synchronized.

The enum singleton is effectively lazy because it's not initialized until first use. Java initialization is also synchronized, so multiple threads can't initialize more than one instance of INSTANCE. You're getting a lazily initialized singleton with very little code. The only negative is the the rather obscure syntax. You need to know the idiom or thoroughly understand how class loading and initialization work to know what's happening.

Enums enumerate a fixed set of values, in a self-documenting way.
They make your code more explicit, and also less error-prone.

Why not using String, or int, instead of Enum, for constants?

1. The compiler won't allow typos, neither values out of the fixed set, as enums are types by themselves. Consequences:
   • You won't have to write a pre-condition (or a manual if) to assure your argument is in the valid range.
   • The type invariant comes for free.
2. Enums can have behaviour, just as any other class.
3. You would probably need a similar amount of memory to use Strings, anyway (this depends on the complexity of the Enum).

Moreover, each of the Enum's instances is a class, for which you can define its individual behaviour.

Plus, they assure thread safety upon creation of the instances (when the enum is loaded), which has seen great application in simplifying the Singleton Pattern.

This blog illustrates some of its applications, such as a State Machine for a parser.

Java lets you restrict variable to having one of only a few predefined values - in other words, one value from an enumerated list. Using enums can help to reduce bug's in your code. Here is an example of enums outside a class:

enums coffeesize{BIG , HUGE , OVERWHELMING }; 
//This semicolon is optional.

This restricts coffeesize to having either: BIG , HUGE , or OVERWHELMING as a variable.

Use enums for TYPE SAFETY, this is a language feature so you will usually get:

• Compiler support (immediately see type issues)
• Tool support in IDEs (auto-completion in switch case, missing cases, force default, ...)
• In some cases enum performance is also great (EnumSet, typesafe alternative to traditional int-based "bit flags.")

Enums can have methods, constructors, you can even use enums inside enums and combine enums with interfaces.

Think of enums as types to replace a well defined set of int constants (which Java 'inherited' from C/C++) and in some cases to replace bit flags.

The book Effective Java 2nd Edition has a whole chapter about them and goes into more details. Also see this Stack Overflow post.

It is useful to know that enums are just like the other classes with Constant fields and a private constructor.

For example,

public enum Weekday
{
  MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY
} 

The compiler compiles it as follows;

class Weekday extends Enum
{
  public static final Weekday MONDAY  = new Weekday( "MONDAY",   0 );
  public static final Weekday TUESDAY = new Weekday( "TUESDAY ", 1 );
  public static final Weekday WEDNESDAY= new Weekday( "WEDNESDAY", 2 );
  public static final Weekday THURSDAY= new Weekday( "THURSDAY", 3 );
  public static final Weekday FRIDAY= new Weekday( "FRIDAY", 4 );
  public static final Weekday SATURDAY= new Weekday( "SATURDAY", 5 );
  public static final Weekday SUNDAY= new Weekday( "SUNDAY", 6 );

  private Weekday( String s, int i )
  {
    super( s, i );
  }

  // other methods...
}

There are many answers here, just want to point two specific ones:

1) Using as constants in Switch-case statement. Switch case won't allow you to use String objects for case. Enums come in handy. More: http://www.javabeat.net/2009/02/how-to-use-enum-in-switch/

2) Implementing Singleton Design Pattern - Enum again, comes to rescue. Usage, here: What is the best approach for using an Enum as a singleton in Java?

enum means enumeration i.e. mention (a number of things) one by one.

An enum is a data type that contains fixed set of constants.

OR

An enum is just like a class, with a fixed set of instances known at compile time.

For example:

public class EnumExample {
    interface SeasonInt {
        String seasonDuration();
    }

    private enum Season implements SeasonInt {
        // except the enum constants remaining code looks same as class
        // enum constants are implicitly public static final we have used all caps to specify them like Constants in Java
        WINTER(88, "DEC - FEB"), SPRING(92, "MAR - JUN"), SUMMER(91, "JUN - AUG"), FALL(90, "SEP - NOV");

        private int days;
        private String months;

        Season(int days, String months) { // note: constructor is by default private 
            this.days = days;
            this.months = months;
        }

        @Override
        public String seasonDuration() {
            return this+" -> "+this.days + "days,   " + this.months+" months";
        }

    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(Season.SPRING.seasonDuration());
        for (Season season : Season.values()){
            System.out.println(season.seasonDuration());
        }

    }
}

Advantages of enum:

• enum improves type safety at compile-time checking to avoid errors at run-time.
• enum can be easily used in switch
• enum can be traversed
• enum can have fields, constructors and methods
• enum may implement many interfaces but cannot extend any class because it internally extends Enum class

for more

The enum based singleton

a modern look at an old problem

This approach implements the singleton by taking advantage of Java's guarantee that any enum value is instantiated only once in a Java program and enum provides implicit support for thread safety. Since Java enum values are globally accessible, so it can be used as the singleton.

public enum Singleton {
    SINGLETON; 
    public void method() { }
}

How does this work? Well, the line two of the code may be considered to something like this:

public final static Singleton SINGLETON = new Singleton(); 

And we get good old early initialized singleton.

Remember that since this is an enum you can always access to instance via Singleton.SINGLETON as well:

Singleton s = Singleton.SINGLETON;

• To prevent creating another instances of singleton during deserialization use enum based singleton because serialization of enum is taken care by JVM. Enum serialization and deserialization work differently than for normal java objects. The only thing that gets serialized is the name of the enum value. During the deserialization process the enum valueOf method is used with the deserialized name to get the desired instance.
• Enum based singleton allows to protect itself from reflection attack. The enum type actually extends the java Enum class. The reason that reflection cannot be used to instantiate objects of enum type is because the java specification disallows and that rule is coded in the implementation of the newInstance method of the Constructor class, which is usually used for creating objects via reflection:

if ((clazz.getModifiers() & Modifier.ENUM) != 0)
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot reflectively create enum objects");

• Enum is not supposed to be cloned because there must be exactly one instance of each value.
• The most laconic code among all singleton realization.

• The enum based singleton does not allow lazy initialization.
• If you changed your design and wanted to convert your singleton to multiton, enum would not allow this. The multiton pattern is used for the controlled creation of multiple instances, which it manages through the use of a map. Rather than having a single instance per application (e.g. the java.lang.Runtime) the multiton pattern instead ensures a single instance per key.
• Enum appears only in Java 5 so you can not use it in prior version.

There are several realization of singleton pattern each one with advantages and disadvantages.

• Eager loading singleton
• Double-checked locking singleton
• Initialization-on-demand holder idiom
• The enum based singleton

Detailed description each of them is too verbose so I just put a link to a good article - All you want to know about Singleton

Enums are like classes. Like class, it also has methods and attributes.

Differences with class are: 1. enum constants are public, static , final. 2. an enum can't be used to create an object and it can't extend other classes. But it can implement interfaces.

In my experience I have seen Enum usage sometimes cause systems to be very difficult to change. If you are using an Enum for a set of domain-specific values that change frequently, and it has a lot of other classes and components that depend on it, you might want to consider not using an Enum.

For example, a trading system that uses an Enum for markets/exchanges. There are a lot of markets out there and it's almost certain that there will be a lot of sub-systems that need to access this list of markets. Every time you want a new market to be added to your system, or if you want to remove a market, it's possible that everything under the sun will have to be rebuilt and released.

A better example would be something like a product category type. Let's say your software manages inventory for a department store. There are a lot of product categories, and many reasons why this list of categories could change. Managers may want to stock a new product line, get rid of other product lines, and possibly reorganize the categories from time to time. If you have to rebuild and redeploy all of your systems simply because users want to add a product category, then you've taken something that should be simple and fast (adding a category) and made it very difficult and slow.

Bottom line, Enums are good if the data you are representing is very static over time and has a limited number of dependencies. But if the data changes a lot and has a lot of dependencies, then you need something dynamic that isn't checked at compile time (like a database table).

As for me to make the code readable in future the most useful aplyable case of enumeration is represented in next snippet:

public enum Items {
    MESSAGES, CHATS, CITY_ONLINE, FRIENDS, PROFILE, SETTINGS, PEOPLE_SEARCH, CREATE_CHAT
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menuPrm) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menuPrm);
    View itemChooserLcl;
    for (int i = 0; i < menuPrm.size(); i++) {
        MenuItem itemLcl  = menuPrm.getItem(i);
            itemChooserLcl = itemLcl.getActionView();
            if (itemChooserLcl != null) {
                 //here Im marking each View' tag by enume values:
                itemChooserLcl.setTag(Items.values()[i]);
                itemChooserLcl.setOnClickListener(drawerMenuListener);
            }
        }
    return true;
}
private View.OnClickListener drawerMenuListener=new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        Items tagLcl= (Items) v.getTag();
        switch (tagLcl){
            case MESSAGES: ;
            break;
            case CHATS : ;
            break;
            case CITY_ONLINE : ;
            break;
            case FRIENDS : ;
            break;
            case  PROFILE: ;
            break;
            case  SETTINGS: ;
            break;
            case  PEOPLE_SEARCH: ;
            break;
            case  CREATE_CHAT: ;
            break;
        }
    }
};

What gave me the Ah-Ha moment was this realization: that Enum has a private constructor only accessible via the public enumeration:

enum RGB {
    RED("Red"), GREEN("Green"), BLUE("Blue");

    public static final String PREFIX = "color ";

    public String getRGBString() {
        return PREFIX + color;
    }

    String color;

    RGB(String color) {
        this.color = color;
    }
}

public class HelloWorld {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String c = RGB.RED.getRGBString();
        System.out.print("Hello " + c);
    }
}

Apart from all said by others.. In an older project that I used to work for, a lot of communication between entities(independent applications) was using integers which represented a small set. It was useful to declare the set as enum with static methods to get enum object from value and viceversa. The code looked cleaner, switch case usability and easier writing to logs.

enum ProtocolType {
    TCP_IP (1, "Transmission Control Protocol"), 
    IP (2, "Internet Protocol"), 
    UDP (3, "User Datagram Protocol");

    public int code;
    public String name;

    private ProtocolType(int code, String name) {
        this.code = code;
        this.name = name;
    }

    public static ProtocolType fromInt(int code) {
    switch(code) {
    case 1:
        return TCP_IP;
    case 2:
        return IP;
    case 3:
        return UDP;
    }

    // we had some exception handling for this
    // as the contract for these was between 2 independent applications
    // liable to change between versions (mostly adding new stuff)
    // but keeping it simple here.
    return null;
    }
}

Create enum object from received values (e.g. 1,2) using ProtocolType.fromInt(2) Write to logs using myEnumObj.name

Hope this helps.

ENum stands for "Enumerated Type". It is a data type having a fixed set of constants which you define yourself.

Now why and what for should I used enum in day to day programming?

You can use an Enum to represent a smallish fixed set of constants or an internal class mode while increasing readability. Also, Enums can enforce a certain rigidity when used in method parameters. They offer the interesting possibility of passing information to a constructor like in the Planets example on Oracle's site and, as you've discovered, also allow a simple way to create a singleton pattern.

ex: Locale.setDefault(Locale.US) reads better than Locale.setDefault(1) and enforces the use of the fixed set of values shown in an IDE when you add the . separator instead of all integers.

So far, I have never needed to use enums. I have been reading about them since they were introduced in 1.5 or version tiger as it was called back in the day. They never really solved a 'problem' for me. For those who use it (and I see a lot of them do), am sure it definitely serves some purpose. Just my 2 quid.

From Java documents -

You should use enum types any time you need to represent a fixed set of constants. That includes natural enum types such as the planets in our solar system and data sets where you know all possible values at compile time—for example, the choices on a menu, command line flags, and so on.

A common example is to replace a class with a set of private static final int constants (within reasonable number of constants) with an enum type. Basically if you think you know all possible values of "something" at compile time you can represent that as an enum type. Enums provide readability and flexibility over a class with constants.

Few other advantages that I can think of enum types. They is always one instance of a particular enum class (hence the concept of using enums as singleton arrives). Another advantage is you can use enums as a type in switch-case statement. Also you can use toString() on the enum to print them as readable strings.

In addition to @BradB Answer :

That is so true... It's strange that it is the only answer who mention that. When beginners discover enums, they quickly take that as a magic-trick for valid identifier checking for the compiler. And when the code is intended to be use on distributed systems, they cry... some month later. Maintain backward compatibility with enums that contains non static list of values is a real concern, and pain. This is because when you add a value to an existing enum, its type change (despite the name does not).

"Ho, wait, it may look like the same type, right? After all, they’re enums with the same name – and aren’t enums just integers under the hood?" And for these reasons, your compiler will likely not flag the use of one definition of the type itself where it was expecting the other. But in fact, they are (in most important ways) different types. Most importantly, they have different data domains – values that are acceptable given the type. By adding a value, we’ve effectively changed the type of the enum and therefore break backward compatibility.

In conclusion : Use it when you want, but, please, check that the data domain used is a finite, already known, fixed set.

Instead of making a bunch of const int declarations

You can group them all in 1 enum

So its all organized by the common group they belong to

Besides the already mentioned use-cases, I often find enums useful for implementing the strategy pattern, following some basic OOP guidelines:

1. Having the code where the data is (that is, within the enum itself -- or often within the enum constants, which may override methods).
2. Implementing an interface (or more) in order to not bind the client code to the enum (which should only provide a set of default implementations).

The simplest example would be a set of Comparator implementations:

enum StringComparator implements Comparator<String> {
    NATURAL {
        @Override
        public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
            return s1.compareTo(s2);
        }
    },
    REVERSE {
        @Override
        public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
            return NATURAL.compare(s2, s1);
        }
    },
    LENGTH {
        @Override
        public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
            return new Integer(s1.length()).compareTo(s2.length());
        }
    };
}

This "pattern" can be used in far more complex scenarios, making extensive use of all the goodies that come with the enum: iterating over the instances, relying on their implicit order, retrieving an instance by its name, static methods providing the right instance for specific contexts etc. And still you have this all hidden behind the interface so your code will work with custom implementations without modification in case you want something that's not available among the "default options".

I've seen this successfully applied for modeling the concept of time granularity (daily, weekly, etc.) where all the logic was encapsulated in an enum (choosing the right granularity for a given time range, specific behavior bound to each granularity as constant methods etc.). And still, the Granularity as seen by the service layer was simply an interface.