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What's the use of "enum" in Java?

Asked 2012-03-24T09:18:56.210
72

So I looked into this "enum" type, and it kind of seems like a glorified array/ArrayList/List to me. What exactly is the use of it?

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77

Enum serves as a type of fixed number of constants and can be used at least for two things

constant

public enum Month {
    JANUARY, FEBRUARY, ...
}

This is much better than creating a bunch of integer constants.

creating a singleton

public enum Singleton {
    INSTANCE

   // init
};

You can do quite interesting things with enums, look at here

Also look at the official documentation

answered 2012-03-24T09:25:29.433

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