Java: Check if enum contains a given string?

Question

Here\'s my problem - I\'m looking for (if it even exists) the enum equivalent of ArrayList.contains();.

Here\'s a sample of my code problem:

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Answer 1

This should do it:

public static boolean contains(String test) {

    for (Choice c : Choice.values()) {
        if (c.name().equals(test)) {
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

This way means you do not have to worry about adding additional enum values later, they are all checked.

Edit: If the enum is very large you could stick the values in a HashSet:

public static HashSet getEnums() {

  HashSet values = new HashSet();

  for (Choice c : Choice.values()) {
      values.add(c.name());
  }

  return values;
}

Then you can just do: values.contains("your string") which returns true or false.