Return List of Enum values from string literal of Enum's name

Question

Let's say I have a string with a value

'Language'

And I have an enum called Language

enum Language{
    English,
    Spanish,
    French
}

Is there a way to use the string 'Language' and return the values of the Enum Language. I'm basically wondering if there is a method to get an instance of the Enum Language by passing in a string. Kind of like

Class.forName()

but for enums.

Answer 1

An enum is a class, so with the fully qualified name (eg, "com.mydomain.myapp.Language" ) you can get the enum's class from Class.forName . From there, you can use reflection on the Class object: getEnumConstants gives you all the enum's values, and if you want names instead you can just use .name on the Enum objects.