Java: Enum parameter in method

Question

I have a method lets say:

private static String drawCellValue(     int maxCellLength, String cellValue, String align) { } 

and as you can notice, I have a parameter called align. Inside this method I'm going to have some if condition on whether the value is a 'left' or 'right'.. setting the parameter as String, obviously I can pass any string value.. I would like to know if it's possible to have an Enum value as a method parameter, and if so, how?

Just in case someone thinks about this; I thought about using a Boolean value but I don't really fancy it. First, how to associate true/false with left/right ? (Ok, I can use comments but I still find it dirty) and secondly, I might decide to add a new value, like 'justify', so if I have more than 2 possible values, Boolean type is definitely not possible to use.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This should do it:

private enum Alignment { LEFT, RIGHT };     String drawCellValue (int maxCellLength, String cellValue, Alignment align){   if (align == Alignment.LEFT)   {     //Process it...   } } 

Answer 2

Even cooler with enums you can use switch:

switch (align) {    case LEFT: {        // do stuff       break;    }    case RIGHT: {       // do stuff       break;    }    default: { //added TOP_RIGHT but forgot about it?       throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't yet handle " + align);     } } 

Enums are cool because the output of the exception will be the name of the enum value, rather than some arbitrary int value.