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. Originally 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, ...
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