The Java enum is a powerful feature of the language that allows one to elegantly represent finite values and to provide convenient access to characteristics of those finite values.

Because Java lacks a proper C/C++ enumeration (enum) feature, Java programmers have opted to define simple sets of primitive values: public class Colors { public static final int GREEN = 0; ...

I picked up adding a few meta values to enums a long time ago; I feel they make bounds checking and writing for loops more readable. But gcc has been giving me some grief about it in one way, here ...

JPA and Hibernate enum mapping The Java enum, introduced in Java 5, will map to the underlying database without any intervention. The JPA framework, be it Hibernate or Toplink or DataNucleus, will ...