How to check if a given string is a part of any given Enum in Java?

Question

I have two different enums and i want to be able to output whether a given string is a part of a enum collection. this is my code:

public class Check {
    public enum Filter{SIZE, DATE, NAME};
    public enum Action{COPY, DELETE, REMOVE};

    public boolean isInEnum(String value, Enum e){
        // check if string value is a part of a given enum
        return false;
    }

    public void main(){
        String filter = "SIZE";
        String action = "DELETE";
                // check the strings
        isInEnum(filter, Filter);
        isInEnum(action, Action);
    }
}

eclipse says that in the last two lines "Filter can't be resolved to a variable" but apart from that it seems that the Enum param in the function "isInEnum" is wrong.

Something is very wrong here can anyone help?

Answer 1

The simplest (and usually most efficient) way is as follows:

public <E extends Enum<E>> boolean isInEnum(String value, Class<E> enumClass) {
  for (E e : enumClass.getEnumConstants()) {
    if(e.name().equals(value)) { return true; }
  }
  return false;
}

and then you call isInEnum(filter, Filter.class).