Storing EnumSet in a database?

Question

So in C++/C# you can create flags enums to hold multiple values, and storing a single meaningful integer in the database is, of course, trivial.

In Java you have EnumSets, which appear to be quite a nice way to pass enums around in memory, but how do you output the combined EnumSet to an integer for storage? Is there another way to approach this?

Edit Thanks for the responses guys, I'll give it a crack..

Answer 1

EnumSet implements Serializable, but there's a lot of overhead if you use that (it is written as an array of IDs, not a BitSet as you might expect, plus the object stream header.)

Answer 2

Providing your enum fits into an int (i.e. there are <= 32 values) I would roll my own implementation by using each enum's ordinal value; e.g.

public <E extends Enum<E>> int encode(EnumSet<E> set) {
  int ret = 0;

  for (E val : set) {
    // Bitwise-OR each ordinal value together to encode as single int.
    ret |= (1 << val.ordinal());
  }

  return ret;
}

public <E extends Enum<E>> EnumSet<E> decode(int encoded, Class<E> enumKlazz) {
  // First populate a look-up map of ordinal to Enum value.
  // This is fairly disgusting: Anyone know of a better approach?
  Map<Integer, E> ordinalMap = new HashMap<Integer, E>();
  for (E val : EnumSet.allOf(enumKlazz)) {
    ordinalMap.put(val.ordinal(), val);
  }

  EnumSet<E> ret= EnumSet.noneOf(enumKlazz);
  int ordinal = 0;

  // Now loop over encoded value by analysing each bit independently.
  // If the bit is set, determine which ordinal that corresponds to
  // (by also maintaining an ordinal counter) and use this to retrieve
  // the correct value from the look-up map.
  for (int i=1; i!=0; i <<= 1) {
    if ((i & encoded) != 0) {
      ret.add(ordinalMap.get(ordinal));
    }

    ++ordinal;
  }

  return ret;
}

Disclaimer: I haven't tested this!

EDIT

As Thomas mentions in the comments the ordinal numbers are unstable in that any change to your enum definition within your code will render the encodings in your database corrupt (e.g. if you insert a new enum value in the middle of your existing definition). My approach to solving this problem is to define an "Enum" table per enumeration, containing a numerical ID (not the ordinal) and the String enum value. When my Java application starts, the first thing the DAO layer does is to read each Enum table into memory and:

• Verify that all String enum values in the database match the Java definition.
• Initialise a Bi-directional map of ID to enum and vice-versa, which I then use whenever I persist an enum (In other words, all "data" tables reference the database-specific Enum ID, rather than store the String value explicitly).

This is much cleaner / more robust IMHO than the ordinal approach I describe above.

Answer 3

If you look in the source for RegularEnumSet, which is the implementation for Enum's <= 64 members, you will see that it contains:

/**
 * Bit vector representation of this set.  The 2^k bit indicates the
 * presence of universe[k] in this set.
 */
private long elements = 0L;

elements is a bit-mask where the bit positions equal the enum ordinals, which is exactly what you need. However this attribute is not made availlable through a getter or setter as that would not match the equivalent accessors for the JumboEnumSet.

It is not one of the nicest solutions, but if simplicity and speed is what you are after, you could create 2 static utility methods that retrieve and set the elements attribute using reflection.

For me, I would probably just setup a constants class holding the enum values as integer constants where I can be sure which enum gets assigned what bit.

Answer 4

Storing the ordinal as a representation of the EnumSet is not a good idea. The ordinal numbers depend on the order of the definition in the Enum class (a related discussion is here). Your database may be easily broken by a refactoring that changes the order of Enum values or introduces new ones in the middle.

You have to introduce a stable representation of individual enum values. These can be int values again and represented in the proposed way for the EnumSet.

Your Enums can implement interfaces so the stable represenation can be directly in the enum value (adapted from Adamski):

interface Stable{
    int getStableId();
}
public enum X implements Stable {
    A(1), B(2);

    private int stableId;

    X(int id){
        this.stableId = id;
    }

    @Override public int getStableId() {
        return stableId;
    }
}

adapted from Adamski's code:

public <E extends Stable> int encode(EnumSet<E> set) {
  int ret = 0;

  for (E val : set) {
    ret |= (1 << val.stableId());
  }

  return ret;
}

Answer 5

// From Adamski's answer
public static <E extends Enum<E>> int encode(EnumSet<E> set) {
    int ret = 0;

    for (E val : set) {
        ret |= 1 << val.ordinal();
    }

    return ret;
}

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
private static <E extends Enum<E>> EnumSet<E> decode(int code,
        Class<E> enumType) {
    try {
        E[] values = (E[]) enumType.getMethod("values").invoke(null);
        EnumSet<E> result = EnumSet.noneOf(enumType);
        while (code != 0) {
            int ordinal = Integer.numberOfTrailingZeros(code);
            code ^= ~Integer.lowestOneBit(code);
            result.add(values[ordinal]);
        }
        return result;
    } catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
        // Shouldn't happen
        throw new RuntimeException(ex);
    } catch (InvocationTargetException ex) {
        // Probably a NullPointerException, caused by calling this method
        // from within E's initializer.
        throw (RuntimeException) ex.getCause();
    } catch (NoSuchMethodException ex) {
        // Shouldn't happen
        throw new RuntimeException(ex);
    }
}