How can I lookup a Java enum from its String value?

Question

I would like to lookup an enum from its string value (or possibly any other value). I've tried the following code but it doesn't allow static in initialisers. Is there a simple way?

public enum Verbosity {      BRIEF, NORMAL, FULL;      private static Map<String, Verbosity> stringMap = new HashMap<String, Verbosity>();      private Verbosity() {         stringMap.put(this.toString(), this);     }      public static Verbosity getVerbosity(String key) {         return stringMap.get(key);     } }; 

Answer 1

You're close. For arbitrary values, try something like the following:

public enum Day {       MONDAY("M"), TUESDAY("T"), WEDNESDAY("W"),     THURSDAY("R"), FRIDAY("F"), SATURDAY("Sa"), SUNDAY("Su"), ;      private final String abbreviation;      // Reverse-lookup map for getting a day from an abbreviation     private static final Map<String, Day> lookup = new HashMap<String, Day>();      static {         for (Day d : Day.values()) {             lookup.put(d.getAbbreviation(), d);         }     }      private Day(String abbreviation) {         this.abbreviation = abbreviation;     }      public String getAbbreviation() {         return abbreviation;     }      public static Day get(String abbreviation) {         return lookup.get(abbreviation);     } } 

Answer 2

Use the valueOf method which is automatically created for each Enum.

Verbosity.valueOf("BRIEF") == Verbosity.BRIEF 

For arbitrary values start with:

public static Verbosity findByAbbr(String abbr){     for(Verbosity v : values()){         if( v.abbr().equals(abbr)){             return v;         }     }     return null; } 

Only move on later to Map implementation if your profiler tells you to.

I know it's iterating over all the values, but with only 3 enum values it's hardly worth any other effort, in fact unless you have a lot of values I wouldn't bother with a Map it'll be fast enough.