Question

I’m learning about Java enums and I was wondering what is the best approach to check multiple enums for a matching value in order to call a specific method. I have defined two separate enums below that are used by getValue method’s colName parameter to determine what method to execute. So the enum drives the method call. There has to be a more efficient way to do this than what I have below. Any suggestions?

I want to avoid having to do the below (pseudo code):

 if(colName.equalsIgnoreCase("ATTRIBUTEONE") || 
       colName.equalsIgnoreCase("ATTRIBUTETWO") || 
          colName.equalsIgnoreCase("ATTRIBUTETWO")){
             callAsStringMethod();
    } else if(colName.equalsIgnoreCase("ATTRIBUTEFOUR")){
         callAsIntegerMethod();
    }

My Attempt using enum:

 public class RowHelper implements IRowHelper
            public static enum StringAttributes {
                ATTRIBUTEONE,
                ATTRIBUTETWO,
                ATTRIBUTETHREE;
            }

            public static enum IntegerAttributes {
                ATTRIBUTEFOUR,
                ATTRIBUTEFIVE,
                ATTRIBUTESIX,
                ATTRIBUTESEVEN;
            }
            @Override
            public String getValue(String colName) throws Exception{    
                boolean colFound=false;
                Object retValue = null;
                for (EConstants.StringAttributes attribute : EConstants.StringAttributes.values()) {
                    if(colName.toUpperCase().equals(attribute)){
                        retValue = callAsStringMethod();
                        colFound=true;
                    }
                }
                for (EConstants.IntegerAttributes attribute : EConstants.IntegerAttributes.values()) {
                    if(colName.toUpperCase().equals(attribute)){
                        retValue = callAsIntegerMethod();
                        colFound=true;
                    }
                }
                if(!colFound)
                           throw new Exception("column not found");

                if(retValue instanceof String )
                    return (String) retValue;
                else
                    return retValue.toString();
            }
        }

Answer 1

Try this:

public String getValue(String colName) throws Exception {

    final String name = colName != null ? colName.trim().toUpperCase() : "";

    try {
        EConstants.StringAttributes.valueOf(name);
        return callAsStringMethod().toString();
    } catch (Exception e1) {
        try {
            EConstants.IntegerAttributes.valueOf(name);
            return callAsIntegerMethod().toString();
        } catch (Exception e2) {
            throw new Exception("column not found");
        }
    }

}

The method’s now returning the appropriate value, according to the latest edit of the question.

EDIT :

According to Kirk Woll and Louis Wasserman’s benchmark, looping through values is significantly faster than doing a try/catch. So here’s a simplified version of the original code, expect it to be a bit faster:

public String getValue(String colName) throws Exception {

    final String name = colName != null ? colName.trim().toUpperCase() : "";

    for (EConstants.StringAttributes attribute : EConstants.StringAttributes.values())
        if (name.equals(attribute))
            return callAsStringMethod().toString();

    for (EConstants.IntegerAttributes attribute : EConstants.IntegerAttributes.values())
        if (name.equals(attribute))
            return callAsIntegerMethod().toString();

    throw new Exception("column not found");

}