A 'for' loop to iterate over an enum in Java

Thursday 22 December 2016

I have an enum in Java for the cardinal & intermediate directions:

public enum Direction {
   NORTH,
   NORTHEAST,
   EAST,

   SOUTHEAST,
   SOUTH,
   SOUTHWEST,
   WEST,
   NORTHWEST
}

How can I write a for loop that iterates through each of these enum values?

Answer

You can call the values() method on your enum.

for (Direction dir : Direction.values()) {
  // do what you want
}

This values() method is implicitly declared by the compiler. So it is not listed on Enum doc.

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