Effective Java 34 Emulate extensible enums with interfaces

	Advantage	Disadvantage
Enum types	Clarity Safety Ease of maintenance.	None extensibility
Typesafe enum pattern(Interfaces to emulate extensible enums)	Extensibility	No good way to enumerate all of the elements of a base type and its extension. Extensibility would complicate many aspects of the design and implementation. Implementations cannot be inherited from one enum type to another.

   

Scenario

Sometimes it is desirable to let the users of an API provide their own operations, effectively extending the set of operations provided by the API.

Compelling use case for extensible enumerated type -- Operation codes/ opcodes.

   

Usage

1. Pass a single instance of an "extension enum" anywhere a "base enum" is expected.

   /**

   * Demo for "34 Emulate extensible enums with interfaces".

   */

   package com.effectivejava.EnumAnnotations;

      

   /**

   * @author Kaibo

   *

   */

   public interface Operation {

   double apply(double x, double y);

   }

      

   /**

   * Demo for the "34 Emulate extensible enums with interfaces".

   */

   package com.effectivejava.EnumAnnotations;

      

   import java.util.HashMap;

   import java.util.Map;

      

   /**

   * @author Kaibo

   *

   */

   public enum BaseOperation implements Operation {

   PLUS("+") {

   public double apply(double x, double y) {

   return x + y;

   }

   },

   MINUS("-") {

   public double apply(double x, double y) {

   return x - y;

   }

   },

   TIMES("*") {

   public double apply(double x, double y) {

   return x * y;

   }

   },

   DIVIDE("/") {

   public double apply(double x, double y) {

   return x / y;

   }

   };

   private final String symbol;

      

   BaseOperation(String symbol) {

   this.symbol = symbol;

   }

      

   @Override

   public String toString() {

   return symbol;

   }

      

   public abstract double apply(double x, double y);

      

   // Implementing a fromString method on an enum type

   private static final Map<String, BaseOperation> stringToEnum = new HashMap<String, BaseOperation>();

   static { // Initialize map from constant name to enum constant

   for (BaseOperation op : values())

   stringToEnum.put(op.toString(), op);

   }

      

   // Returns BaseOperation for string, or null if string is invalid

   public static BaseOperation fromString(String symbol) {

   return stringToEnum.get(symbol);

   }

   }

      

2. Pass in an entire extension enum type and use its elements in addition to or instead of those of the base type.

   

/**

* Demo for the "34 Emulate extensible enums with interfaces".

*/

package com.effectivejava.EnumAnnotations;

   

/**

* @author Kaibo

*

*/

public enum ExtendedOperation implements Operation {

EXP("^") {

public double apply(double x, double y) {

return Math.pow(x, y);

}

},

REMAINDER("%") {

public double apply(double x, double y) {

return x % y;

}

};

private final String symbol;

   

ExtendedOperation(String symbol) {

this.symbol = symbol;

}

   

@Override

public String toString() {

return symbol;

}

}

   

Note

1. Passing the extended enums between methods.
   1. Bounded type token

      public static void main(String[] args) {

      double x = Double.parseDouble(args[0]);

      double y = Double.parseDouble(args[1]);

      test(ExtendedOperation.class, x, y);

      }

      private static <T extends Enum<T> & Operation> void test(

      Class<T> opSet, double x, double y) {

      for (Operation op : opSet.getEnumConstants())

      System.out.printf("%f %s %f = %f%n", x, op, y, op.apply(x, y));

      }

   

b. Passing with Collection<? Extends Operation>

public static void main(String[] args) {

double x = Double.parseDouble(args[0]);

double y = Double.parseDouble(args[1]);

test(Arrays.asList(ExtendedOperation.values()), x, y);

}

   

private static void test(Collection<? extends Operation> opSet, double x, double y) {

for (Operation op : opSet)

System.out.printf("%f %s %f = %f%n", x, op, y, op.apply(x, y));

}

2. The logic to store and retrieve the symbol associated with an operation is duplicated in BasicOperation and ExtendedOperation. In this case it doesn't matter because very little code is duplicated. If there were a larger amount of shared functionality, you could encapsulate it in a helper class or a static helper method to eliminate the code duplication.

   

Summary

While you cannot write an extensible enum type, you can emulate it by writing an interface to go with a basic enum type that implements the interface.