Java Enum return Int

Question

I\'m having trouble declaring an enum. What I\'m trying to create is an enum for a \'DownloadType\', where there are 3 download types (AUDIO, VIDEO, AUDIO_AND_VIDEO).

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Answer 1

Font.PLAIN is not an enum. It is just an int. If you need to take the value out of an enum, you can't avoid calling a method or using a .value, because enums are actually objects of its own type, not primitives.

If you truly only need an int, and you are already to accept that type-safety is lost the user may pass invalid values to your API, you may define those constants as int also:

public final class DownloadType {
    public static final int AUDIO = 0;
    public static final int VIDEO = 1;
    public static final int AUDIO_AND_VIDEO = 2;

    // If you have only static members and want to simulate a static
    // class in Java, then you can make the constructor private.
    private DownloadType() {}
}

By the way, the value field is actually redundant because there is also an .ordinal() method, so you could define the enum as:

enum DownloadType { AUDIO, VIDEO, AUDIO_AND_VIDEO }

and get the "value" using

DownloadType.AUDIO_AND_VIDEO.ordinal()

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Edit: Corrected the code.. static class is not allowed in Java. See this SO answer with explanation and details on how to define static classes in Java.