Getting all names in an enum as a String[]
Create a String[]
array for the names and call the static values()
method which returns all the enum values, then iterate over the values and populate the names array.
public static String[] names() {
State[] states = values();
String[] names = new String[states.length];
for (int i = 0; i < states.length; i++) {
names[i] = states[i].name();
}
return names;
}
Here's one-liner for any enum
class:
public static String[] getNames(Class<? extends Enum<?>> e) {
return Arrays.stream(e.getEnumConstants()).map(Enum::name).toArray(String[]::new);
}
Pre Java 8 is still a one-liner, albeit less elegant:
public static String[] getNames(Class<? extends Enum<?>> e) {
return Arrays.toString(e.getEnumConstants()).replaceAll("^.|.$", "").split(", ");
}
That you would call like this:
String[] names = getNames(State.class); // any other enum class will work
If you just want something simple for a hard-coded enum class:
public static String[] names() {
return Arrays.toString(State.values()).replaceAll("^.|.$", "").split(", ");
}
Here`s an elegant solution using Apache Commons Lang 3:
EnumUtils.getEnumList(State.class)
Although it returns a List, you can convert the list easily with list.toArray()
If you can use Java 8, this works nicely (alternative to Yura's suggestion, more efficient):
public static String[] names() {
return Stream.of(State.values()).map(State::name).toArray(String[]::new);
}