Understanding enum

[Ravi Shankar Kumar]

Hi

can anybody tell me how enum is advantageous if i am using inside class instead of static variable keeping out of this.....

[Stephan van Hulst]

Can you please rephrase your question? I'm not sure what you meant.

[Sebanti Sanyal]

If you strictly want a variable to assume a value within a specific set of constants, you should be better off with an enum.

class Demo{
enum Color{RED,YELLOW,BLUE,GREEN}
Color c=Color.RED;
public static final int RED=0;
public static final int YELLOW=1;
public static final int BLUE=2;
public static final int GREEN=3;
int color=5;
}

In the above example, 'Color c' can take only four values(e.g. Color.RED, Color.YELLOW, Color.BLUE or Color.GREEN), whereas, in case of 'int color', nothing stops me from assigning any value outside the four static final int constants.

[Stephan van Hulst]

You've already identified the most important advantage yourself.

It doesn't make sense for a Color to be 1 or 2 or 5. Colors should be RED or GREEN, etc. and there should be nothing else - like an integer value - that is of importance.

Enums provide this important distinction.