Can enums be subclassed to add new elements?

Question

I want to take an existing enum and add more elements to it as follows:

enum A {a,b,c}

enum B extends A {d}

/*B is {a,b,c,d}*/

Is this po

Answer 1

Here is a way how I found how to extend a enum into other enum, is a very straighfoward approach:

Suposse you have a enum with common constants:

public interface ICommonInterface {

    String getName();

}


public enum CommonEnum implements ICommonInterface {
    P_EDITABLE("editable"),
    P_ACTIVE("active"),
    P_ID("id");

    private final String name;

    EnumCriteriaComun(String name) {
        name= name;
    }

    @Override
    public String getName() {
        return this.name;
    }
}

then you can try to do a manual extends in this way:

public enum SubEnum implements ICommonInterface {
    P_EDITABLE(CommonEnum.P_EDITABLE ),
    P_ACTIVE(CommonEnum.P_ACTIVE),
    P_ID(CommonEnum.P_ID),
    P_NEW_CONSTANT("new_constant");

    private final String name;

    EnumCriteriaComun(CommonEnum commonEnum) {
        name= commonEnum.name;
    }

    EnumCriteriaComun(String name) {
        name= name;
    }

    @Override
    public String getName() {
        return this.name;
    }
}

of course every time you need to extend a constant you have to modify your SubEnum files.