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 compiler says

unqualified enumeration constant name required

So your value of RT would need to be RUNTIME instead of RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME to make your code work. But of course that is not possible. Why not use the RetentionPolicy enum directly? If you want to stick to your final static declaration, you need to assign the whole enum to your final static variable.