will the order for enum.values() always same [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
enum.values() - is an order of returned enums deterministic

I have an enum something like below :-

enum Direction {

    EAST,
    WEST,
    NORTH,
    SOUTH
}

If i say values() on the Direction enum, then will the order of the value remain same all the time. I mean will the order of values will be in the below foramt always:

EAST,WEST,NORTH,SOUTH

or can the order change at any point of time.

Answer 1

Each Enum type has a static values method that returns an array containing all of the values of the enum type in the order they are declared.

This method is commonly used in combination with the for-each loop to iterate over the values of an enumerated type.

Java 7 Spec documentation link : http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-8.html#jls-8.9.2

Answer 2

The behaviour of that method is defined in the Java Language Specification #8.9.2:

In addition, if E is the name of an enum type, then that type has the following implicitly declared static methods:

/**
* Returns an array containing the constants of this enum   
* type, in the order they're declared.  This method may be  
* used to iterate over the constants as follows:  
*  
*    for(E c : E.values())  
*        System.out.println(c);  
*  
* @return an array containing the constants of this enum   
* type, in the order they're declared  
*/  
public static E[] values();