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Comparing Java Enums (Enumerations)

Sometimes you will need to compare enumerations to one another. Unfortunately Java doesn't support comparing enums using < and >. You can't do this:

  if (debugLevel < LogLevel.ERROR) {
    // Informational or debug info here
  }

Instead, use compareTo():

  if (debugLevel.compareTo(LogLevel.ERROR) < 0) {
    // Informational or debug info here
  }

compareTo() returns a negative number if the first enum is less than the one passed as a parameter.

Last modified on 6 Mar 2009 by AO