"-" separated strings in enum java

Question

I have a problem in creating an enumeration in Java using "-"-separated strings:

public enum CipherList{

   RSA-MD5,AES128-SHA,AES256-SHA;
}

I am getting compilation errors.

Why do you need the dashes in the identifiers? Because I think you'd need something [like this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9781903/737620) — wrock, May 23 '12 at 07:18
`-` is not valid inside an identifier (as it would be confused by the minus sign / substraction operation. Anyway next time provide more information about the error if you expect some reply — SJuan76, May 23 '12 at 07:20

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:04

9

The - symbol may not be used in an identifier in Java. (How would RSA-MD5 be parsed if RSA and MD5 happened to be integers?)

I suggest you use

RSA_MD5, AES128_SHA, AES256_SHA;

according to the Java coding conventions for constants ^{related question}.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:04

Community

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answered May 23 '12 at 07:17

aioobe

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Cant i have it as a string, coz I am going to use the same values for processing .. – Style May 23 '12 at 11:36
You mean that you will use values returned by name() during processing? – aioobe May 23 '12 at 12:09

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '12 at 07:18

3

Enum constants have to use valid Java identifiers, and identifiers are not allowed to contain dashes.

You could, for example, replace dashes with underscores:

public enum CipherList{
   RSA_MD5, AES128_SHA, AES256_SHA;
}

answered May 23 '12 at 07:18

NPE

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered May 23 '12 at 07:27

If you want to use exact strings using enums you can use following approach.

enum CipherList{
   CHIP_ONE("RSA-MD5"),CHIP_TWO("AES128-SHA"),CHIP_THREE("AES256-SHA");
   private String code;
   CipherList(String code) {
      code= code;
   }
   String getcode() {
      return code;
   } 
}

"-" separated strings in enum java

3 Answers3