When and why is it useful to use Enumeration?

Question

When is it useful to work with the Java class Enumeration and why is it useful to work with it?

I think you can see this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4709175/what-are-enums-and-why-are-they-useful — Zxcv, Sep 14 '15 at 20:12
Enumeration is useful if you are using Java 1.0 or 1.1 or an API which was written for these version. — Peter Lawrey, Sep 14 '15 at 20:28

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 14 '15 at 20:12

6

Enumeration is largely obsolete. Per the Javadoc, it is an interface that generates a series of elements, one at a time. Successive calls to the nextElement method return successive elements of the series. It is the predecessor to Iterator which (per the Javadoc)

Iterator takes the place of Enumeration in the Java Collections Framework.

answered Sep 14 '15 at 20:12

Elliott Frisch

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Iterator was added in Java 1.2 (1998) ;) – Peter Lawrey Sep 14 '15 at 20:29
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@PeterLawrey Which is also when Collection(s) were added. Apache Commons Collections provides [`EnumerationIterator`](http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-collections/javadocs/api-3.2.1/org/apache/commons/collections/iterators/EnumerationIterator.html) which can be used to make an `Enumeration` appear as an `Iterator`. – Elliott Frisch Sep 14 '15 at 20:34
`Enumeration` is for code archaeologists – Peter Lawrey Sep 15 '15 at 06:40

When and why is it useful to use Enumeration?

1 Answers1