How to print all enum values in Java?

Question

enum generalInformation {     NAME {         @Override         public String toString() {             return "Name";         }     },     EDUCATION {         @Override         public String toString() {             return "Education";         }     },     EMAIL {         @Override         public String toString() {             return "Email";         }     },     PROFESSION {         @Override         public String toString() {             return "Profession";         }     },     PHONE {         @Override         public String toString() {             return "Phone";         }     } } 

I have that information are avaiable in enum.

1. How to print all enum values like: print.generalInformation?

That outputs:

Name
Education
Email
Phone

2. How to pass that enum generalInformation as an arg in another function?

Answer 1

System.out.println(java.util.Arrays.asList(generalInformation.values())); 

Your second part... Just the same as an interface or a class

Answer 2

Firstly, I would refactor your enum to pass the string representation in a constructor parameter. That code is at the bottom.

Now, to print all enum values you'd just use something like:

// Note: enum name changed to comply with Java naming conventions for (GeneralInformation info : EnumSet.allOf(GeneralInformation.class)) {     System.out.println(info); } 

An alternative to using EnumSet would be to use GeneralInformation.values(), but that means you have to create a new array each time you call it, which feels wasteful to me. Admittedly calling EnumSet.allOf requires a new object each time too... if you're doing this a lot and are concerned about the performance, you could always cache it somewhere.

You can use GeneralInformation just like any other type when it comes to parameters:

public void doSomething(GeneralInformation info) {     // Whatever } 

Called with a value, e.g.

doSomething(GeneralInformation.PHONE); 

---

Refactoring using a constructor parameter

public enum GeneralInformation {     NAME("Name"),     EDUCATION("Education"),     EMAIL("Email"),     PROFESSION("Profession"),     PHONE("Phone");      private final String textRepresentation;      private GeneralInformation(String textRepresentation) {         this.textRepresentation = textRepresentation;     }      @Override public String toString() {          return textRepresentation;     } } 

With your current values, you could actually just convert the name to title case automatically - but that wouldn't be very flexible for the long term, and I think this explicit version is simpler.