Java Language Tutorial => Convert enum to String

Example

Sometimes you want to convert your enum to a String, there are two ways to do that.

Assume we have:

public enum Fruit {
    APPLE, ORANGE, STRAWBERRY, BANANA, LEMON, GRAPE_FRUIT;
}

So how do we convert something like Fruit.APPLE to "APPLE"?

Convert using `name()`

name() is an internal method in enum that returns the String representation of the enum, the return String represents exactly how the enum value was defined.

For example:

System.out.println(Fruit.BANANA.name());      // "BANANA"
System.out.println(Fruit.GRAPE_FRUIT.name()); // "GRAPE_FRUIT"

Convert using `toString()`

toString() is, by default, overridden to have the same behavior as name()

However, toString() is likely overridden by developers to make it print a more user friendly String

Don't use toString() if you want to do checking in your code, name() is much more stable for that. Only use toString() when you are going to output the value to logs or stdout or something

By default:

System.out.println(Fruit.BANANA.toString());      // "BANANA"
System.out.println(Fruit.GRAPE_FRUIT.toString()); // "GRAPE_FRUIT"

Example of being overridden

System.out.println(Fruit.BANANA.toString());      // "Banana"
System.out.println(Fruit.GRAPE_FRUIT.toString()); // "Grape Fruit"

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Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

Example

Convert using `name()`

Convert using `toString()`

By default:

Example of being overridden

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Java Language

Java Language Enums Convert enum to String

Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

Example

Convert using name()

Convert using toString()

By default:

Example of being overridden

Got any Java Language Question?

Convert using `name()`

Convert using `toString()`