Most efficient way to track 3 states?

Question

In a program I am writing, I have an object with three states, which it progresses through during the corse of the program. Since the program uses a lot of these objects (potentially) I want to keep the size of them down. Here's the issue. How to store what state the object is in? a boolean won't work, of corse, since there are three states. So here's what I can up with:
Either a Boolean (initial state is null, then false, then true)
or a byte (any three values would work)
I have a feeling that the byte is more efficient, but want to make sure. Also, if I'm missing an easy, efficient way to do this, tell me.

Answer 1

Nearly there:
<code>
public abstract class State {
abstract void handleState();
abstract int getState();
public class State1 extends State {
void handleState() {
//do state 1 specific stuff
int getState() {
return 1;
public class State2 extends State {
void handleState() {
//do state 2 specific stuff
int getState() {
return 2;
public class State3 extends State {
void handleState() {
//do state 3 specific stuff
int getState() {
return 3;
public class StateController {
private State currentState = new State1();
public int getState() {
return currentState.getState();
public void handleState() {
currentState.handleState();
</code>
might work ;)
As to booleans... no they cannot be null actually... they are represented by a bit which is 0 or 1 (or if you prefer true of false).
Boolean b = null;
is not a null boolean, it is an uninitialised object.
If you need an Object that you want to be a boolean then it is fine to use the Boolean class :)
The reason boolean b: b == null doesn't compile is because you cannot compare different types.