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How to work-around the restriction of primitive objects - like Integer, String - not being allowed to derive from?

I realize that it is not possible to derive from primitive objects as they are declared final. How do I work around this restriction? I am programming with the JPA Criteria API. Almost everywhere I handle with my own methods having Integer/String parameters to compare against entity fields representing database table row values. On any of these parameters I would like to accept QueryParameter<Integer> or QueryParameter<String>. Doing so I would have to create the method a second time accepting query parameters instead of the literals. However, thinking about value lists (as in the QueryBuilder's in(...) method) with permutating literals and query parameters, makes it hard or even impossible to implement.
Let us assume I had an entity Car with a method withFeatures(StringRepresentation ... features) and there would be literals and query parameters had derived from the same super-class StringRepresentation which itself would have be derived from the primitive type String. I would like to do so:
myCar.withFeatures("Seat Heating", "Metallic Color", "Trailer Hitch");
myCar.withFeatures(new QueryParam<String>("MyFavourit"));
myCar.withFeatures("Seat Heating", new QueryParam<String>("LoveThatColor"), "Trailer Hitch");
Has anyone an approach or even kind of a solution for this?

I'd use a builder pattern with one method for each type of criterion.
class Car {
private Set<String> features = new HashSet();
public Car withFeature(String f) {
features.add(f);
return this;
}
public Car withFeature(QueryParameter<String> q) {
features.add(q.getStringRepresentation()); // or whatever
return this;
}
...
}
So you can say:
myCar.withFeature("Seat Heating")
.withFeature(new QueryParam<String>("MyFavourit");

with permutating literals and query parameters, makes it hard or even impossible to implement
You could leverage CharSequence for strings, but I'm not sure that's a god idea...
import lombok.RequiredArgsConstructor;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
withFeatures("test", new StringQueryParam("test2"));
}
#SafeVarargs
public final static <T extends CharSequence> void withFeatures(T ...params) {
// Wrap in StringQueryParam if not an instance of QueryParam<String>
}
interface QueryParam<T> {
}
#RequiredArgsConstructor
static class StringQueryParam implements QueryParam<String>, CharSequence {
private final CharSequence value;
#Override
public int length() {
return value.length();
}
#Override
public char charAt(int index) {
return value.charAt(index);
}
#Override
public CharSequence subSequence(int start, int end) {
return value.subSequence(start, end);
}
}
}
Having less verbose static factory methods (e.g. QueryParam.of, QueryParam.all, etc. for query params) mixed with builders or ways to combine them effectively could help.
e.g.
// Assuming Lists.union util method
withFeatures(Lists.union(
QueryParam.all("a", "b"),
QueryParam.of("c")
));
// With static imports
withFeatures(union(params("a", "b"), param("c"));
// With ParamsBuilder
withFeatures(ParamsBuilder.of("a", "b").add(QueryParam.of("c").build())));
Hopefully that gives you some ideas on how to design the API! You may as well use a more complicated, but flexible route where the entire criteria is just an AST so that QueryParam really just is a type of Expression in the AST allowing to create composites, etc. If you look at QueryDSL everything is a DslExpression and you have visitors to execute operations against the tree.

I spent some time to solve that problem taking in the hints from the Java Community so far.
Of course I am a follower of Java's concept of type safety (thanks to plalx). Hence, my solution will probably has to do with parameterized types.
And also I do admiring the concept of design patterns like many others (thanks to tgdavies). Hence, I use the builder pattern with one method for each type of criterion. I will accept to implement car feature methods for
using plain old literals of String
as well as specifying parameters of String
That is:
myCar.withFeatures("Seat Heating", "Metallic Color", "Trailer Hitch");
as well as specifying (let's say) query parameters or String parameters of some kind with a slightly more complex way by using a static method sp(...)
myCar.withFeatures(sp("MyFavourit"));
and of course a mixture of both, introducing another static method sr(...) for string representation:
myCar.withFeatures(sr("Seat Heating"), sp("LoveThatColor"), sr("Trailer Hitch"));
The mixture of both is important in cases where we want to use variable arguments in method signatures to specify those representations, in this case car features.
As one can see, it is almost the usage I stated above when posting this question.
How can I achieve this?
At first I designed an interface to implement my different String representations against:
public interface ValueTypeRepresentation<T> {
public Class<T> getClazz();
public QueryParameter<T> getQueryParameter();
public RepresentationType getRepresentationType();
public T getValue();
}
The methods are to determine whether the representation is a literal or a parameter, and to get the literal's value resp. the parameter itself to later on use its name.
The clazz member is to ease the Java Generic Type Inference purposes because I will be using parameterized types to implement different type representations. As I said, String ist just the starter of the show.
Then I designed an abstract class to derive the concrete classes of representations of different primitive objects from:
abstract class AbstractValueTypeRepresentation<T> implements ValueTypeRepresentation<T> {
private Class<T> clazz;
private RepresentationType representationType = RepresentationType.VALUE;
private QueryParameter<T> queryParameter;
private T value;
public AbstractValueTypeRepresentation(Class<T> clazz, T value) {
this.clazz = clazz;
this.representationType = RepresentationType.VALUE;
this.value = value;
}
public AbstractValueTypeRepresentation(QueryParameter<T> qp) {
this.clazz = qp.getClazz();
this.representationType = RepresentationType.PARAM;
this.queryParameter = qp;
}
#Override
public Class<T> getClazz() {
return clazz;
}
#Override
public QueryParameter<T> getQueryParameter() {
return queryParameter;
}
#Override
public RepresentationType getRepresentationType() {
return representationType;
}
#Override
public T getValue() {
return value;
}
}
To distinguish a literal of that type from the query parameter of that type, I introduced this enumeration:
public enum RepresentationType {
PARAM, VALUE;
}
Then I designed the first concrete representation, here for my StringRepresentation (derived from the abstract class above):
public class StringRepresentation extends AbstractValueTypeRepresentation<String> {
public static StringRepresentation sr(String s) {
return new StringRepresentation(s);
}
public static StringRepresentation sp(String name) {
return new StringRepresentation(new QueryParameter<String>(String.class, name));
}
public StringRepresentation(String value) {
super(String.class, value);
}
public StringRepresentation(QueryParameter<String> queryParameter) {
super(queryParameter);
}
}
Obviously this is easy to extend to representations of Integer, Float, LocalDate, etc.

Getting Enum from an integer having a Class<? extends Enum> object

I have seen this which is pretty nice solution if i had a string instead of integer, but in case all i have is the specific enum's class object and an integer, how to do i get the specific enum constant instance?

Relying on the ordinal value of Java enum constants is poor practice -- it's too easy to accidentally reorder them, which would then break your code. The better solution is to simply provide your own integer that you can use instead:
public enum MyThing {
FOO(1),
BAR(2),
BAZ(3);
private final int thingId;
private MyThing(int thingId) {
this.thingId = thingId;
}
public int getThingId() {
return thingId;
}
}
Then whenever you want to get the thingId from a MyThing, just call the getThingId() method:
void doSomething(MyThing thing) {
System.out.printf("Got MyThing object %s with ID %d\n",
thing.name(), thing.getThingId());
}
If you want to be able to look up a MyThing by its thingId, you can build a lookup table yourself and store it in a static final field:
private static final Map<Integer, MyThing> LOOKUP
= createLookupMap();
private static Map<Integer, MyThing> createLookupMap() {
Map<Integer, MyThing> lookupMap = new HashMap<>();
for (MyThing thing : MyThing.values()) {
lookupMap.put(thing.getThingId(), thing);
}
return Collections.unmodifiableMap(lookupMap);
}
public static MyThing getThingById(int thingId) {
MyThing result = LOOKUP.get(thingId);
if (result == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"This is not a valid thingId: " + thingId);
}
return result;
}
If you end up having a lot of enum classes and you want to do a similar thing with each of them, you can define an interface for that:
public interface Identifiable {
int getId();
}
And then make your enum implement that interface:
public enum MyThing implements Identifiable {
...
#Override
public int getId() {
return thingId;
}
}
And then you could build a reusable mechanism for looking up an Identifiable object based on its ID.

seem to have found the answer :
((Class<? extends Enum>)clazz).getEnumConstants()[index]
although for any-one looking for that, you should consider following #Daniel Pryden answer as most likely that using this in most use cases i can think of is bad practice.

How to use Java Enums being DRY with only a single parameter different between instantiations?

I'm trying to figure out if there is a clean way of doing this. I want to design an ENUM to maintain a list of constant values for different components in my application. Each enum would have the same configuration and same parameters, but would differ at the very least by component name.
In a normal Java class, I could build all the basic logic/code in a base abstract class, and have each component constants extend the abstract class and populate only its own pertinent information. However, Java enums do not allow extending existing classes.
Is there something I can do to avoid having to either push all my constants in a single Enum (ugggg!) or recreate the same enum class each time for each differing component? Definitely not DRY in that case, but I do not know how to avoid the issue.
For a quick use-case example off the top of my head. Say I want to keep a list of all my request mappings in an Enum for use elsewhere in my application. Fairly easy to design an enum that says:
public enum RequestMapping {
INDEX("index"),
GET_ALL_USERS( "getAllUsers");
private String requestMapping = "/users";
private String path;
RatesURI( String path ){
this.path = path;
}
public String getRequestMapping(){
return requestMapping;
}
public String getPath(){
return path;
}
public String getFullRequestPath(){
return requestMapping + "/" + path;
}
}
It becomes easy to use RequestMapping.GET_ALL_USERS.getFullRequestPath().
Now if I want to create this enum on a per-controller basis, I would have to recreate the entire Enum class and change the "requestMapping" value for each one. Granted, this enum has nearly no code in it, so duplicating it would not be difficult, but the concept still remains. The theoretical "clean" way of doing this would be to have an abstract AbstractRequestMapping type that contained all the methods, including an abstract getRequestMapping() method, and only have the extending Enums implement the controller-specific getReqeuestMapping(). Of course, since Enums cannot be extended, I can't think of a non DRY way of doing this.

Have you considered extending a class that takes Enum as a generic parameter? It is an amazingly flexible mechanism.
public class Entity<E extends Enum<E> & Entity.IE> {
// Set of all possible entries.
// Backed by an EnumSet so we have all the efficiency implied along with a defined order.
private final Set<E> all;
public Entity(Class<E> e) {
// Make a set of them.
this.all = Collections.unmodifiableSet(EnumSet.<E>allOf(e));
}
// Demonstration.
public E[] values() {
// Make a new one every time - like Enum.values.
E[] values = makeTArray(all.size());
int i = 0;
for (E it : all) {
values[i++] = it;
}
return values;
}
// Trick to make a T[] of any length.
// Do not pass any parameter for `dummy`.
// public because this is potentially re-useable.
public static <T> T[] makeTArray(int length, T... dummy) {
return Arrays.copyOf(dummy, length);
}
// Example interface to implement.
public interface IE {
#Override
public String toString();
}
}
class Thing extends Entity<Thing.Stuff> {
public Thing() {
super(Stuff.class);
}
enum Stuff implements Entity.IE {
One,
Two;
}
}
You can pass the nature of your implementation up to the parent class in many different ways - I use enum.class for simplicity.
You can even make the enum implement an interface as you can see.
The values method is for demonstration only. Once you have access to the Set<E> in the parent class you can provide all sorts of functionality just by extending Entity.

I will probably split the responsibilities into two parts:
Logic about how a request is structured, and put that into an immutable class.
Actual configurations of each request, stored in enums
The enum will then store an instance of that class, you can add new methods to the class, without modifying the different enums, as long as the constructor remains the same. Note that the class must be immutable, or your enum will not have a constant value.
You can use it like the:
ServiceRequest.INDEX.getRequest().getFullRequestPath()
With these classes:
public interface RequestType {
Request getRequest();
}
public class Request {
private final String requestMapping;
private final String path;
RatesURI(String requestMapping, String path){
this.requestMappint = requestMapping;
this.path = path;
}
public String getRequestMapping(){
return requestMapping;
}
public String getPath(){
return path;
}
public String getFullRequestPath(){
return requestMapping + "/" + path;
}
}
public enum ServiceRequest implements RequestType {
INDEX("index"),
GET_ALL_USERS( "getAllUsers");
private final Request;
ServiceRequest(String path) {
request = new Request("users/", path)
}
public String getRequest{
return request;
}
}

I think what you should be asking yourself is really why you want to use enums for this. First we can review some of the points that make Java enumerated types what they are.
Specifically
A Java enum is a class that extends java.lang.Enum.
Enum constants are static final instances of that class.
There is some special syntax to use them but that is all they boil down to. Because instantiating new Enum instances is disallowed outside of the special syntax (even with reflection, enum types return zero constructors) the following is also ensured to be true:
They can only be instantiated as static final members of the enclosing class.
The instances are therefore explicitly constant.
As a bonus, they are switchable.
What it really boils down to is what it is about the enums that makes them preferable over a simpler OOP design here. One can easily create a simple RequestMapping class:
/* compacted to save space */
public class RequestMapping {
private final String mapping, path;
public RequestMapping(String mapping, String path) {
this.mapping = mapping; this.path = path;
}
public String getMapping() {
return mapping; }
public String getPath() {
return path; }
public String getFullRequestPath() {
return mapping + "/" + path;
}
}
Which can easily be extended to break down the repeated code:
public class UserMapping extends RequestMapping {
public UserMapping(String path) {
super("/users", path);
}
}
/* where ever appropriate for the constants to appear */
public static final RequestMapping INDEX = new UserMapping("index"),
GET_ALL_USERS = new UserMapping("getAllUsers");
But I assume there is something about enums that is attractive to your design, such as the principle that instances of them are highly controlled. Enums cannot be created all willy-nilly like the above class can be. Perhaps it's important that there be no plausible way for spurious instances to be created. Of course anybody can come by and write in an enum with an invalid path but you can be pretty sure nobody will do it "by accident".
Following the Java "static instances of the outer class" enum design, an access modifier structure can be devised that generally abides by the same rule set as Enum. There are, however, two problems which we can't get around easily.
Two Problems
Protected modifier allows package access.
This can easily be surmounted initially by putting the Enum-analog in its own package. The problem becomes what to do when extending. Classes in the same package of the extended class will be able to access constructors again potentially anywhere.
Working with this depends on how stringent you want to be on creating new instances and, conversely, how clear the design ends up. Can't be a whole mess of scopes just so only a few places can do the wrong thing.
Static members are not polymorphic.
Enum surmounts this by not being extendable. Enum types have a static method values that appears "inherited" because the compiler inserts it for you. Being polymorphic, DRY and having some static features means you need instances of the subtype.
Defeating these two issues depends on how stringent you want your design to be and, conversely, how readable and stable you want your implementation to be. Trying to defy OOP principles will get you a design that's hard to break but totally explodes when you call that one method in a way you aren't supposed to (and can't prevent).
First Solution
This is almost identical to the Java enum model but can be extended:
/* 'M' is for 'Mapping' */
public abstract class ReturnMapping<M extends ReturnMapping> {
/* ridiculously long HashMap typing */
private static final HashMap <Class<? extends ReturnMapping>, List<ReturnMapping>>
VALUES = new HashMap<Class<? extends ReturnMapping>, List<ReturnMapping>>();
private final String mapping, path;
protected Mapping(String mapping, String path) {
this.mapping = mapping;
this.path = path;
List vals = VALUES.get(getClass());
if (vals == null) {
vals = new ArrayList<M>(2);
VALUES.put(getClass(), vals);
}
vals.add(this);
}
/* ~~ field getters here, make them final ~~ */
protected static <M extends ReturnMapping> List<M>(Class<M> rm) {
if (rm == ReturnMapping.class) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"ReturnMapping.class is abstract");
}
List<M> vals = (List<M>)VALUES.get(rm);
if (vals == null) {
vals = new ArrayList<M>(2);
VALUES.put(rm, (List)vals);
}
return Collections.unmodifiableList(vals);
}
}
Now extending it:
public final class UserMapping extends ReturnMapping<UserMapping> {
public static final UserMapping INDEX = new UserMapping("index");
public static final UserMapping GET_ALL_USERS = new UserMapping("getAllUsers");
private UserMapping(String path) {
super("/users", path);
}
public static List<UserMapping> values() {
return values(UserMapping.class);
}
}
The huge static HashMap allows almost all of the values work to be done statically in the superclass. Since static members are not properly inherited this is the closest you can get to maintaining a list of values without doing it in the subclass.
Note there are two problems with the Map. The first is that you can call the values with ReturnMapping.class. The map should not contain that key (the class is abstract and the map is only added to in the constructor) so something needs to be done about it. Instead of throwing an exception you could also insert a "dummy" empty list for that key.
The other problem is that you can call values on the superclass before the instances of the subclass are instantiated. The HashMap will return null if this is done before the subclass is accessed. Static problem!
There is one other major problem with this design because the class can be instantiated externally. If it's a nested class, the outer class has private access. You can also extend it and make the constructor public. That leads to design #2.
Second Solution
In this model the constants are an inner class and the outer class is a factory for retrieving new constants.
/* no more generics--the constants are all the same type */
public abstract class ReturnMapping {
/* still need this HashMap if we want to manage our values in the super */
private static final HashMap <Class<? extends ReturnMapping>, List<Value>>
VALUES = new HashMap<Class<? extends ReturnMapping>, List<Value>>();
public ReturnMapping() {
if (!VALUES.containsKey(getClass())) {
VALUES.put(getClass(), new ArrayList<Value>(2));
}
}
public final List<Value> values() {
return Collections.unmodifiableList(VALUES.get(getClass()));
}
protected final Value newValue(String mapping, String path) {
return new Value(getClass(), mapping, path);
}
public final class Value {
private final String mapping, path;
private Value(
Class type,
String mapping,
String path) {
this.mapping = mapping;
this.path = path;
VALUES.get(type).add(this);
}
/* ~~ final class, field getters need not be ~~ */
}
}
Extending it:
public class UserMapping extends ReturnMapping {
public static final Value INDEX, GET_ALL_USERS;
static {
UserMapping factory = new UserMapping();
INDEX = factory.newValue("/users", "index");
GET_ALL_USERS = factory.newValue("/users", "getAllUsers");
}
}
The factory model is nice because it solves two problems:
Instances can only be created from within the extending class.
Anybody can create a new factory but only the class itself can access the newValue method. The constructor for Value is private so new constants can only be created by using this method.
new UserMapping().values() forces the values to be instantiated before returning them.
No more potential errors in this regard. And the ReturnMapping class is empty and instantiating new objects in Java is fast so I wouldn't worry about overhead. You can also easily create a static field for the list or add static methods such as in solution #1 (though this would deflate the design's uniformity).
There are a couple of downsides:
Can't return the subtyped values List.
Now that the constant values are not extended they are all the same class. Can't dip in to generics to return differently-typed Lists.
Can't easily distinguish what subtype a Value is a constant of.
But it's true this could be programmed in. You could add the owning class as a field. Still shaky.
Sum Of It
Bells and whistles can be added to both of these solutions, for example overriding toString so it returns the name of the instance. Java's enum does that for you but one of the first things I personally do is override this behavior so it returns something more meaningful (and formatted).
Both of these designs provide more encapsulation than a regular abstract class and most importantly are far more flexible than Enum. Trying to use Enum for polymorphism is an OOP square peg in a round hole. Less polymorphism is the price to pay for having enumerated types in Java.

Extending enum fields Java

I know that it isn't possible to extend enum in Java, but I am trying to find an elegant solution for the below
I am trying to model enums (or classes) which will contain http end points of various web services across regions, say I have service A and B, each will have 4 region specific end points in US, EU, JP or CN. (This is basically for some seperate debug code that I am writing, in production the end points will be picked from configuration)
I was hoping to do something like this (not compliant java code).
public enum IEndPoint {
NA_END_POINT,
EU_END_POINT,
JP_END_POINT,
CN_END_POINT,
}
public enum ServiceAEndPoint extends IEndPoint {
NA_END_POINT("http://A.com/");
EU_END_POINT("http://A-eu.com/");
JP_END_POINT("http://A-jp.com/");
CN_END_POINT("http://A-cn.com/");
}
I could do this using interfaces where I have a method for each region, but in my opinion the enum way is more expressive, is there any better way I could model this ? What I am looking for is if there is any better way to model the inheritence relation and also having the expressive power of enumerations.
ServiceAEndPoint.NA_END_POINT
vs
serviceAEndPoint.getNAEndPoint()

I'm assuming that you will also want a ServiceBEndPoint enum (and similar). In which case I don't think your model really makes that much sense.
IEndPoint is really an enumeration of the kind of environments/regions where a service might be running. It is not an enumeration of the services themselves. Each individual service (A, B or whatever) will have different addresses for each of the regions.
Therefore I would stick with just the IEndPoint enum, and then in some service-specific code have a lookup map that will give you the address for a given end-point. Something like this:
public enum IEndPoint {
NA_END_POINT,
EU_END_POINT,
JP_END_POINT,
CN_END_POINT,
}
public class ServiceABroker {
private static final Map<IEndPoint, String> addressesByEndPoint;
static {
addressesByEndPoint = new EnumMap<>();
addressesByEndPoint.put(NA_END_POINT, "http://A.com/");
addressesByEndPoint.put(EU_END_POINT, "http://A-eu.com/");
addressesByEndPoint.put(JP_END_POINT, "http://A-jp.com/");
addressesByEndPoint.put(CN_END_POINT, "http://A-cn.com/");
}
public String getAddressForEndPoint(IEndPoint ep) {
return addressesByEndPoint.get(ep);
}
}

If these are static final constants, then just put them in an interface. Name the interface something like IServiceAEndPointKeys, where the keys part is a convention.
Here's where I consider enums to be more appropriate and useful:
Example 1: File type. An enum containing jpg, pdf etc.
Example 2: Column definitions. If I have a table with 3 columns, I would write an enum declaring ID, Name, Description (for example), each one having parameters like column header name, column width and column ID.

Im not sure I understand you question, but you can add methods to an enum for example you could do something like the following:
public enum ServiceAEndPoint{
NA_END_POINT("http://A.com/");
EU_END_POINT("http://A-eu.com/");
JP_END_POINT("http://A-jp.com/");
CN_END_POINT("http://A-cn.com/");
private final String url;
private EndPoint(String url){
this.url=url;
}
public String getURL(){
return url;
}
}

Enums cannot be extended in such a manner, mostly because enums cannot be sub-classed or the constraints they must adhere to will not be possible to impose.
Instead leverage interfaces, like so
public interface IEndPoint;
public enum DefaultEndPoints implements IEndPoint {
NA_END_POINT,
EU_END_POINT,
JP_END_POINT,
CN_END_POINT,
}
public enum DefaultServiceEndPoints implements IEndPoint {
NA_END_POINT("http://A.com/");
EU_END_POINT("http://A-eu.com/");
JP_END_POINT("http://A-jp.com/");
CN_END_POINT("http://A-cn.com/");
}
public void doSomething(IEndPoint endpoint) {
...
}
The reason why one can't subclass in the manner you wish is related to the contract that enums will be both equal via .equals(object) and via ==. If you could subclass, would this make sense?
if ( (DefaultEndPoints)JP_END_POINT == (DefaultServiceEndPoints)JP_END_POINT) {
}
if you say "yes" then I would expect to be able to do this
DefaultEndPoint someEndpoint = DefaultServiceEndPoints.JP_END_POINT;
which would leave a door open for error, as there is no guarantee that a enum entry in one enum declaration is in the other enum declaration.
Could it be different? Perhaps, but it isn't, and changing it would definately introduce a lot of complications that would have to be thoroughly thought out (or it would open avenues to work around Java's strong static-type checking).

You may want to consider something like this:
public abstract class EndpointFactory {
public abstract String getNAEndPoint();
public abstract String getEUEndPoint();
}
public class ServiceAEndpointFactory extends EndpointFactory {
public static final String NA_END_POINT = "http://A.com/";
public static final String EU_END_POINT = "http://A-eu.com/";
public String getNAEndPoint() {
return ServiceAEndpointFactory.NA_END_POINT;
}
public String getEUEndPoint() {
return ServiceAEndpointFactory.EU_END_POINT;
}
}
public class ServiceBEndpointFactory extends EndpointFactory {
public static final String NA_END_POINT = "http://B.com/";
public static final String EU_END_POINT = "http://B-eu.com/";
public String getNAEndPoint() {
return ServiceAEndpointFactory.NA_END_POINT;
}
public String getEUEndPoint() {
return ServiceAEndpointFactory.EU_END_POINT;
}
}
Then you can refer to your strings directly like this:
ServiceAEndpointFactory.NA_END_POINT;
Or, you can use the base object if the type of service is not known until execution:
EndpointFactory ef1 = new ServiceAEndpointFactory();
String ep = ef1.getNAEndPoint();
The drawback of this is the redefinition of the get*Endpoint() functions in each sub-class. You could eliminate that by moving the static final variables to be not static in the base class and putting the getter/setter in the base class only one time. However, the drawback of that is you are not able to reference the values without instantiating an object (which essentially emulates what I find valuable with ENUMs).

How does a pattern like this appeal to you? I let the enum implement an interface and implement the interface in a Debug set and a Release set. The release set can then derive the property name from the enum name - which is neat.
public interface HasURL {
public String getURL();
}
public enum DebugEndPoints implements HasURL {
NA,
EU,
JP,
CN;
#Override
public String getURL() {
// Force debug to go to the same one always.
return "http://Debug.com/";
}
}
public enum NormalEndPoints implements HasURL {
NA,
EU,
JP,
CN;
final String url;
NormalEndPoints () {
// Grab the configured property connected to my name.
this.url = getProperty(this.name());
}
#Override
public String getURL() {
return url;
}
}

Generating Enums Dynamically

Let's say I have a file whose format is basic XML, like so:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<enum-set>
<enum>
<name>SomeEnum</name>
<values>
<value>
<name>SOMEVALUE</name>
<displayText>This is some value</displayText>
</value>
... more values ...
</values>
</enum>
... more enums ...
</enum-set>
and I wanted to turn SomeEnum into something like this at runtime:
public enum SomeEnum implements HasDisplayText {
SOMEVALUE("This is some value"),
... more values ...;
private String displayText;
SomeEnum(String displayText) {
this.displayText = displayText;
}
#Override
public String getDisplayText() {
return displayText;
}
}
... and then pass the newly created enum SomeEnum around my application. How might I achieve something like this? Is it doable?

What you're trying to do doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Enums are really only for the benefit of compile time, as they represent a fixed set of constants. At runtime, what would be the meaning of a dynamically generated enum - how would this be different from an plain object? For example:
public class Salutation implements HasDisplayText {
private String displayText;
private Salutation(String displayText) {
this.displayText = displayText;
}
#Override
public String getDisplayText() {
return displayText;
}
public static Collection<Salutation> loadSalutations(String xml) {
//parse, instantiate, and return Salutations
}
}
Your XML could be parsed into newly instantiated Salutation objects, which could be stored in some Collection or otherwise used by your program. Notice in my example, I've restricted the creation of Salutation by giving it a private constructor - in this case the only way to retrieve instances is by calling the factory method which takes your XML. I believe this achieves the behavior you're looking for.

Actually it is possible to create enum instances dynamically, but it's a total hack, I wouldn't advise it at all - maybe you're misunderstanding the nature of an enum, it's a compile-time feature of the language, and you're not supposed to add/remove instances from it at runtime.
Anyway, if you're interested in the hack for creating enum instances dynamically, take a look at this article.

Dynamic Enums is the answer to your problem:
public abstract class DEnum<E extends DEnum<E>> implements Comparable<E>, Serializable {
This class has a signature similar to the standard Enum class. It has a protected constructor to allow instance creation in concrete Enum classes. For example:
public class YesNo extends DEnum<YesNo> {
public final static YesNo YES = new YesNo();
public final static YesNo NO = new YesNo();
The DEnum class knows the names of the members by introspection:
String name = YesNo.YES.getName();
YesNo yes = YesNo.get(YesNo.class, name);
assert (yes == YesNo.YES);
There is a typed getter that retrieves all the items:
YesNo[] items = yes.getItems();
assert (items.length == 2);
It allows to add members dynamically at run time with (from database or from file):
YesNo maybe = getOrCreateIfNotExists(YesNo.class, "MAYBE");
items = yes.getItems();
assert (items.length == 3);
Which have the same behavior as the static members:
YesNo unknown = YesNo.get(YesNo.class, "MAYBE");
assert (unknown == maybe);

Agree with Oscar Lopez. Here is what i did, a sort of hack.
public static enum Setter {
DYNAMIC_ENUM_EXAMPLE {
#Override
public String setGetValue(String yourValue) {
return "prefix " + yourValue + " postfix";
}
};
public abstract String setGetValue(String value);
}
You can get the value like this :
Setter.DYNAMIC_ENUM_EXAMPLE.setGetValue("namaste")
Output :
prefix namaste postfix