Ordering enum values

Question

I was wondering if there is any way of ordering enum for different classes. If for example, I have a fixed group of chemicals which react in different ways to other chemical

Answer 1

Here is an example showing you the same values of the enum sorted according to different criteria:

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;

public class SortEnum {

    public enum TestEnum {
        A(1, 2), B(5, 1), C(3, 0);
        private int value1;
        private int value2;

        private TestEnum(int value1, int value2) {
            this.value1 = value1;
            this.value2 = value2;
        }

        public int getValue1() {
            return value1;
        }

        public int getValue2() {
            return value2;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List list = Arrays.asList(TestEnum.values());
        System.err.println(list);
        Collections.sort(list, new Comparator() {
            @Override
            public int compare(TestEnum o1, TestEnum o2) {
                return o1.getValue1() - o2.getValue1();
            }
        });
        System.err.println(list);
        Collections.sort(list, new Comparator() {
            @Override
            public int compare(TestEnum o1, TestEnum o2) {
                return o1.getValue2() - o2.getValue2();
            }
        });
        System.err.println(list);
    }
}

OUTPUT is

[A, B, C] [A, C, B] [C, B, A]