Static String constants VS enum in Java 5+

Question

I\'ve read that question & answers: What is the best way to implement constants in Java?

And came up with a decision that enum is better way to implement a set o

Answer 1

With regard to the question about constants - enums should represent constants that are all the same type. If you are doing arbitrary constants this is the wrong way to go, for reasons all described in that other question.

If all you want are String constants, with regard to verbose code you are right. However, you could override the toString() method return the name of the property. If all you want to do is concatenate the String to other Strings then this will save you some extra verbosity in your code.

However, have you considered using Properties files or some other means of internationalisation? Often when defining dets of Strings it is for user interface messages, and extracting these to a separate file might save you a lot of future work, and makes translation much easier.