Accessing enums

[midhuna peru]

Hi guys! I was trying out enums. The following code works fine.

enum CoffeeSize{SMALL, BIG, LARGE}

public class EnumCoffeeOut
{

	CoffeeSize cs ;

	public static void main (String args[])
	{
		EnumCoffeeOut eco=new EnumCoffeeOut();

		System.out.println(eco.cs.SMALL);  


		System.out.println(eco.cs); 	

		eco.cs=CoffeeSize.BIG;		
		System.out.println(eco.cs);  	


		eco.cs=eco.cs.LARGE;		
		System.out.println(eco.cs);  	
	}
}   

Output is

SMALL
null
BIG
LARGE

Now next i was trying to use enum CoffeeSize directly. Here is the code

enum CoffeeSize{SMALL, BIG, LARGE}

public class EnumCoffeeOut
{

	public static void main (String args[])

	{
		CoffeeSize cs ;

		System.out.println(cs.SMALL);  


		System.out.println(cs); 	

		cs=CoffeeSize.BIG;		
		System.out.println(cs);  	


		cs=cs.LARGE;		
		System.out.println(cs);  	
	}
}

It shows me the following error.

EnumCoffeeOut.java:11: variable cs might not have been initialized
System.out.println(cs.SMALL); 

What does it mean? I din't understand why CoffeeSize is not initialized here and what is happening in previous code regarding this.

[Stephan van Hulst]

This has nothing to do with enums.

You may not access a variable before it's initialized. Member variables get initialized to a default value automatically, if you don't assign a value to them. Local variables do not, you always have to assign a value to them explicitly.