Access Enum constant variable

Question

I've a below code snippet.

public class GroupLayout {

    void setHorizontalGroup(GroupLayout.Group inp) {
    }

    public GroupLayout.ParallelGroup createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) { // Error is here
        return new GroupLayout.ParallelGroup();
    }

    public GroupLayout.SequentialGroup createSequentialGroup() {
        return new GroupLayout.SequentialGroup();
    }

    public enum Alignment {
        LEADING
    }

    class Group {

        void addGroup() {
        }
    }

    class ParallelGroup extends Group {}

    class SequentialGroup extends Group {}
}

I am trying to access LEADING constant from Enum type, but getting below error

Syntax error, insert "... VariableDeclaratorId" to complete FormalParameterList

May I know please what am doing wrong to access Enum constant?

Answer 1

Your method definition syntax is wrong. A method can be defined with argument types but not their values, at least until Java will add support for default argument values.

You can either define an alignment argument:

public ParallelGroup createParallelGroup(Alignment alignment) {
    return new ParallelGroup(alignment);
}

or use the actual enum value inside the method body:

public ParallelGroup createParallelGroup() {
    return new ParallelGroup(Alignment.LEADING);
}

You can refer to JLS §8.4. Method Declarations for more information.