Why “final static int” can be used as a switch's case constant but not “final static ”

Question

Why is this int switch valid:

public class Foo {
    private final static int ONE = 1;
    private final static int TWO = 2;

    public static void main(String         


        

Answer 1

The case argument must be primitive; it cannot be an object.

However, you can use enums as follows:

RetentionPolicy value = ...
switch (value) {
    case RUNTIME:
    case SOURCE:
}

Because value is declared to be of type RetentionPolicy you can use the enum constants directly inside the switch.