Java - Enum Types Nesting

Introduction

You can have a nested enum type declaration.

You can declare a nested enum type inside a class, an interface, or another enum type.

Nested enum types are implicitly static.

You can declare a nested enum type static explicitly in its declaration.

Since an enum type is always static, you cannot declare a local enum type (e.g. inside a method's body).

You can use any of the access modifiers (public, private, protected, or package) level for a nested enum type.

The following code declares a nested public enum type named Gender inside a Person class.

Demo

class Person {
  public enum Gender {
    MALE, FEMALE//from   w  w  w.j a v a2s  . co  m
  }
}

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Person.Gender m = Person.Gender.MALE;
    Person.Gender f = Person.Gender.FEMALE;
    System.out.println(m);
    System.out.println(f);
  }
}

Result

You can use the simple name of an enum constant by importing the enum constants using static imports.

import com.book2s.Person.Gender;
import static com.book2s.Person.Gender.*;

class Test {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
                Gender m = MALE;
                Gender f = FEMALE;
                System.out.println(m);
                System.out.println(f);
        }
}

You can nest an enum type inside another enum type or an interface.

The following are valid enum type declarations:

Demo

enum OuterEnum {
        C1, C2, C3;// ww w .  java2s  .c  o m

        public enum NestedEnum {
                C4, C5, C6;
        }
}

interface MyInterface {
        int operation1();
        int operation2();

        public enum AnotherNestedEnum {
                CC1, CC2, CC3;
        }
}

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