Java: The Complete Reference, 10th Edition

CHAPTER

12   Enumerations, Autoboxing, and Annotations

This chapter examines three features that were not originally part of Java, but over time each has become a near indispensable aspect of Java programming: enumerations, autoboxing, and annotations. Added by JDK 5, each is a feature upon which Java programmers have come to rely because each offers a streamlined approach to handling common programming tasks. This chapter also discusses Java’s type wrappers and introduces reflection.

Enumerations

In its simplest form, an enumeration is a list of named constants that define a new data type and its legal values. Thus, an enumeration object can hold only a value that was declared in the list. Other values are not allowed. In other words, an enumeration ...