Question

As part of my Bachelor Thesis, I implemented an Enum type (with the constants and some methods) for the project I am working on. However, I am unsure how to call it in the thesis itself. I started with “Enum-class”, but since it is missing the class keyword, I don’t know whether I could really call it a class. “Enum-type” sounds a bit weird, since enum is already a data type, and I want to refer to my implementation and not the general Java type. Is there a convention how to refer to Enums?

Answer 1

I would use enumeration, since that what is is. Compare the dictionary entry for enumeration

enumerate: mention (a number of things) one by one

versus the definition for enum types from the Java tuturial

An enum type is a type whose fields consist of a fixed set of constants

So for example for an enumeration of all the weekdays, it would use the weekdays-enum(eration). No need to invent a new term for it