Java
Enumeration, Type
Wrappers and Autoboxing
Enumeration
• An enumeration is a list of named constants
• Java enumerations is similar to enumerations in
other languages with some differences
• In Java, an enumeration defines a class type
• In Java, an enumeration can have constructors,
methods, and instance variables
• Example: EnumDemo.java
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Enumeration
• All enumerations automatically contain two
predefined methods:
public static enum-type [ ] values( )
– Returns an array that contains a list of the enumeration
constants
public static enum-type valueOf(String s)
– Returns the enumeration constant whose value
corresponds to the string passed in s
• Example: EnumDemo2.java
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Enumeration
• Java enumeration is a class type
– Although you can’t instantiate an enum using new
• Enumeration can have constructors, instance
variables and methods
– Each enumeration constant is an object of its enumeration
type
– The constructor is called when each enumeration constant
is created
– Each enumeration constant has its own copy of any
instance variables defined by the enumeration
• Example: EnumDemo3.java
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Type Wrappers
• Despite the performance benefit offered by the
primitive types, there are times when you will need
an object representation
– you can’t pass a primitive type by reference to a method
– many of the standard data structures implemented by Java
operate on objects, which means that you can’t use these
data structures to store primitive types
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Type Wrappers
• Java provides type wrappers
– classes that encapsulate a primitive type within an object
• The type wrappers are:
– Character
– Boolean
– Double, Float, Long, Integer, Short, Byte
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Type Wrappers
• The process of encapsulating a value within an object
is called boxing
Integer iOb = new Integer(100);
• The process of extracting a value from a type
wrapper is called unboxing
int i = iOb.intValue();
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Auto (boxing/unboxing)
• Autoboxing
– the process by which a primitive type is automatically
encapsulated into its equivalent type wrapper whenever
an object of that type is needed
– There is no need to explicitly construct an object
• Auto-unboxing
– the process by which the value of a boxed object is
automatically extracted from a type wrapper when its
value is needed
– There is no need to call a method such as intValue() or
doubleValue()
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Autoboxing
• With autoboxing, it is no longer necessary to
manually construct an object in order to wrap a
primitive type
• You need only assign that value to a type-wrapper
reference
• Java automatically constructs the object for you
Integer iOb = 100; // autobox an int 100
• Notice that the object is not explicitly created
through the use of new. Java handles this for you,
automatically
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Auto-unboxing
• To unbox an object, simply assign that object
reference to a primitive-type variable
int i = iOb; // auto-unbox
• Java handles the details for you
• Example: AutoBoxingUnboxingDemo.java
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