Getting all the enum values from enum value

Question

Hi All

I came across thas problem that I without knowing the actual enum type i need to iterate its possible values.

if (value instanceOf Enum){
   Enum enumValue = (Enum)value;
}

Any ideas how to extract from enumValue its possible values ?

Thanks

Answer 1

Object[] possibleValues = enumValue.getDeclaringClass().getEnumConstants();

Answer 2

Enums are just lyke Classes in that they are typed. Your current code just checks if it is an Enum without specifying what type of Enum it is a part of.

Because you haven't specified the type of the enum, you will have to use reflection to find out what the list of enum values is.

You can do it like so:

enumValue.getDeclaringClass().getEnumConstants() 

This will return an array of Enum objects, with each being one of the available options.

Answer 3

... or MyEnum.values() ? Or am I missing something?