Question

Is there a way in Java to declare an enumeration whose values can be used together? For example:

enum FileAccess { Read, Write, ReadWrite } 

Is it possible to define ReadWrite as Read | Write (or anything that would yield the same result)?

Answer 1

You use EnumSet:

EnumSet<FileAccess> readWrite = EnumSet.of(FileAccess.Read, FileAccess.Write); 

This is actually somewhat more elegant than the C#/.NET way, IMO – aside from anything else, you can easily distinguish between a set and a single value.