Java ~ Send an enum over a socket connection

Question

What is the best way to send an enum value through sockets? Is there a way to convert an enum value to an int and vice versa? Like:

Enum values {
    value1,
    value2
}

int value = (int)value1;
And...
values value2 = (value) value;

Would be very nice to send this over the internet! Thanks all!

Bas

Answer 1

Either marshall to int :

int ordinal = values.value1.ordinal()

//unmarshalling
values.values[ordinal];

or to String :

String name = values.value1.name();

//unmarshalling
values.valueOf(name);

The former saves some spaces (32-bits as opposed to varying-length strings) but is harder to maintain, eg rearranging enum values will break ordinal() backward compatibility. On the other hand ordinal() allows you to rename enum values...