Should I strictly avoid using enums on Android?

Question

I used to define a set of related constants like Bundle keys together in an interface like below:

public interface From{
    String LOGIN_SCREEN         


        

Answer 1

In addition to previous answers, I would add that if you are using Proguard (and you should definitely do it to reduce size and obfuscate your code), then your Enums will be automatically converted to @IntDef wherever it is possible:

https://www.guardsquare.com/en/proguard/manual/optimizations

class/unboxing/enum

Simplifies enum types to integer constants, whenever possible.

Therefore, if you have some discrete values and some method should allow to take only this values and not others of the same type, then I would use Enum, because Proguard will make this manual work of optimizing code for me.

And here is a good post about using enums from Jake Wharton, take a look at it.

As a library developer, I recognize these small optimizations that should be done as we want to have as little impact on the consuming app's size, memory, and performance as possible. But it's important to realize that [...] putting an enum in your public API vs. integer values where appropriate is perfectly fine. Knowing the difference to make informed decisions is what's important