Adding toString() To an Enum Class

Question

I have a class like the following to create named constants (similar to enums in C++):
public final class ColorConstant {   // final class!!
     private ColorConstant() {}         // private constructor!!
     public static final ColorConstant.RED = new HoldemConstant();
     public static final ColorConstant.BLUE = new HoldemConstant();
//etc
}Now, sometimes I have a handle to a ColorConstant object, and (for dubugging purposes) I want to know what it is. Problem is, If you just do "println(ColorConstant.RED)", for example, you get some garbage which is the string representatin of the object. Is there a way I can add a toString() method to the above class?
Thanks for suggestions,
John

Answer 1

Now, sometimes I have a handle to a ColorConstant
object, and (for dubugging purposes) I want to know
what it is. Problem is, If you just do
"println(ColorConstant.RED)", for example, you get
some garbage which is the string representatin of the
object. Is there a way I can add a toString() method
to the above class?Of course. Just name the method:
public String toString(), and have it return the appropriate string. If you want ColorConstant.RED to show "Red" for example though, you're going to have to add some state to your object, e.g. make the constructor take a String argument for the human-readable name ("Red"), and save that value as an object member.