Question

Have enum with inner fields, kind of map.

Now I need to get enum by its inner field.

Wrote this:

package test;

/**
 * Test enum to test enum =)
 */
public enum TestEnum {
    ONE(1), TWO(2), THREE(3);

    private int number;

    TestEnum(int number) {
        this.number = number;
    }      

    public TestEnum findByKey(int i) {
        TestEnum[] testEnums = TestEnum.values();
        for (TestEnum testEnum : testEnums) {
            if (testEnum.number == i) {
                return testEnum;
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

But it’s not very efficient to look up through all enums each time I need to find appropriate instance.

Is there any other way to do the same?

Answer 1

You can use a static Map<Integer,TestEnum> with a static initializer that populates it with the TestEnum values keyed by their number fields.

Note that findByKey has been made static, and number has also been made final.

import java.util.*;

public enum TestEnum {
    ONE(1), TWO(2), SIXTY_NINE(69);

    private final int number;    
    TestEnum(int number) {
        this.number = number;
    }

    private static final Map<Integer,TestEnum> map;
    static {
        map = new HashMap<Integer,TestEnum>();
        for (TestEnum v : TestEnum.values()) {
            map.put(v.number, v);
        }
    }
    public static TestEnum findByKey(int i) {
        return map.get(i);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(TestEnum.findByKey(69)); // prints "SIXTY_NINE"

        System.out.println(
            TestEnum.values() == TestEnum.values()
        ); // prints "false"
    }
}

You can now expect findByKey to be a O(1) operation.

References

• JLS 8.7 Static initializers
• JLS 8.9 Enums

Related questions

• Static initalizer in Java
• How to Initialise a static Map in Java

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Note on values()

The second println statement in the main method is revealing: values() returns a newly allocated array with every invokation! The original O(N) solution could do a little better by only calling values() once and caching the array, but that solution would still be O(N) on average.