object is to class as enum is to ...?

Question

object is to class as enum is to ...?

I'm using C# but I'd like the answer for Java as well, if there is one.

Thank you, as always.

Answer 1

It doesn't matter whether we're discussing C# or Java, the sentence cannot be completed the way you expect it to, because of the following fundamental flaw in it: both enum and class are types, whereas an object is a particular instance of a type.

In C#, an enum is a value type that restricts an underlying numeric type by defining acceptable values and (optionally) combinations of those values for the underlying type. Given the following example:

enum Days { Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday };

we say that Days is an enum, while Monday is one of its values.

In Java, an enum is a class defined using special syntax that defines unique, distinguished, publicly accessible instances of it. An enum is final, i.e. it cannot be extended.