Getting an enum from a class with multiple enums

Question

I have a class that looks like this:

public class Catalog {

    public enum Table1 implements IExcelEnum{
            Name, Date, Id
    }

    public enum Table2 IExcelEnum {
        ...
    }
}

I can get to the enum Table1, such as:

System.out.println(Catalog.Table2.Name.value());

But what I want to do is to be able to feed a String or an identifier and get the enum back out so that I can reference it when creating my data object. so for example:

Data dataCol1 = new Data(Catalog.getEnum("Table1"), ArrayList<String> values);

I have an interface called IExcelEnum that does not have any fields, its just so I can generically type my enums so my data structure is willing to accept any of them.

What is the cleanest way to do this?

Answer 1

You probably need to use reflection like this:

    public class Catalog
{
    public interface I
    {
    }

    public enum T1 implements I
    {
        A, B, C;
    }

    public enum T2 implements I
    {
        D, E, F;
    }

    public static void main (String [] args) throws Exception
    {
        String name = "T1";

        Class <? extends I> c =
            (Class <? extends I>)Class.forName (
                Catalog.class.getName () + "$" + name);

        I [] values = (I [])c.getMethod ("values").invoke (null);

        for (I i: values)
            System.out.println (i);
    }
}

Answer 2

Do you mean Catalog.T1.valueOf("TC1")?

In Java, all enums implement the valueOf(String) method, see here.