How do I Share Enum values between my Java code and .proto file

Question

I have a class that I wish to protobuf. in that class one of the fields is an enum (in a class of it's own). Can I avoid defining an identical enum value in my .proto file ? Or will I have to manually make sure the enum definition in the java code is the same as in the .proto file?

java code:

public enum Location {
UNDEF(0),HOME(1), WORK(2);
...
}

.proto file corresponding code:

message Address{
    enum location {
        UNDEF = 0;
        HOME = 1;
        WORK = 2;
    }
   optional location addressLocation;
...
}

Answer 1

The best solution for keeping things like this in sync is often code generation; determine which of your definitions is the Single Point of Truth, and create the others from it. Protocol Buffers has built-in support for Java code generation with nifty features like automatically handling duplicate enum values.