Re: Enum String

From:

Jason Cavett <jason.cavett@gmail.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 18:39:55 -0800 (PST)

Message-ID:

<9e2117dd-56fd-4818-867c-c1aa20e94707@d70g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>

On Feb 7, 9:31 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

Jason Cavett wrote:

Is it possible to get a String back from an enum value? Here is a
sample of my enum:

// XML tags
public enum XML {
  DATA_TAG("data");

  private final String tag;

  private XML(String tag) {
   this.tag = tag;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
   return tag;
  }
}

Now, I could like to be able to just call: XML.DATA_TAG and that
returns a String. Is this possible? Something is telling me that
I'll always have to call the toString() function as well, but I wanted
to check first.

Given that DATA_TAG is not of type String itself, yes, you'll have to call=

toString() just like for any other object if you want a String representat=

ion.

--
Lew- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Alright. I sort of figured that I would. It kind of stinks, though,
because wherever I was using my static Strings before, I now have to
do:

Data::XML::DATA_TAG.toString()
instead of
Data::DATA_TAG

Seems kind of dumb to make the XML tags into an enum. Any opinion/
argument one way or another?