If I know the class type of an Enum, how can I get a list of the values?

Question

I have the following method:

    public XAP_ENUM_EnumConverter put(Type enumType, XAP_ENUM_EnumWrapper enumWrapper) {
        ENUM_WRAPPERS_BY_TYPE_MAP.put(enumType, enumWrapper);
        return this;
    }

which i can invoke in a constructor like this:

    private ALP_CONX_ColourHelper(XAP_ENUM_EnumConverter converter) {
        this.converter = converter;
        this.converter.put(ALP_CONX_Colour.class, new XAP_ENUM_EnumWrapper(ALP_CONX_Colour.values()));
    }

Where ALP_CONX_Colour is an enum, e.g.

public enum ALP_CONX_Colour {
    BLACK,
    WHITE,
    NONE
}

A helper for a different enum would have a similar constructor.

But this rather redundant, as the name of the enum-class is required to provide both paramenters and this should always be consistent. It would make no sense to have a Type for "Colours" and a List for "Shapes". So, I'd like to refactor this function to one parameter like:

    public XAP_ENUM_EnumConverter put(Type enumType) {
        List<Object> enumList = this.createEnumList(enumType);
        XAP_ENUM_EnumWrapper enumWrapper = new XAP_ENUM_EnumWrapper(enumList);
        ENUM_WRAPPERS_BY_TYPE_MAP.put(enumType, enumWrapper);
        return this;
    }


    private List<Object> createEnumList(Type enumType) {
         // What do I need to do here?
         return ???
    }

Is it possible to do this? If so, how?

Answer 1

There is no generic, dynamic approach that will work for all types. Probably the best you can do if you want to avoid maintaining a map is to use a switch statement.

switch on String.valueOf(enumType)
{
    when 'MyCustomEnum'
    {
        return MyCustomEnum.values();
    }
    when 'MyClass.Enum'
    {
        return MyClass.Enum.values
    }
    when 'System.LoggingLevel'
    {
        return LoggingLevel.values();
    }
    when else
    {
        return new List<String>();
        // alternatively consider to be an error case
    }
}

Probably slower than just calling values() concretely; I wouldn consider such an implementation to be of questionable benefit.