Unlocking the Power of Enums: A Deeper Look

The Problem: Case Sensitivity

When working with enums, have you ever encountered the need to look up an enum value by its string representation? Consider an enum called TextStyle that represents different text styles, such as bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough. You have a string variable style that holds the current style you want to apply. However, there’s a catch – the string value is not in all-caps.

The Solution: Using toUpperCase()

To overcome the case sensitivity issue, you can use the toUpperCase() method to convert the given string to upper case before passing it to the valueOf() method. This ensures that the lookup is successful, even when the original string is in lowercase or mixed case.

Avoiding Exceptions

If you don’t use toUpperCase(), you’ll encounter an exception, such as No enum constant EnumString.TextStyle.Bold. This is because the valueOf() method is case-sensitive and expects an exact match.

Java Implementation

public enum TextStyle {
    BOLD, ITALICS, UNDERLINE, STRIKETHROUGH
}

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String style = "bold";
        TextStyle textStyle = TextStyle.valueOf(style.toUpperCase());
        System.out.println(textStyle);
    }
}

By using the toUpperCase() method, you can ensure a successful enum lookup, even when working with case-insensitive string values.