How to get an enum value from a string value in Java?

Question

Say I have an enum which is just

public enum Blah {
    A, B, C, D
}

and I would like to find the enum value of a string, for example

Answer 1

As a switch-version has not been mentioned yet I introduce it (reusing OP's enum):

  private enum Blah {
    A, B, C, D;

    public static Blah byName(String name) {
      switch (name) {
        case "A":
          return A;
        case "B":
          return B;
        case "C":
          return C;
        case "D":
          return D;
        default:
          throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "No enum constant " + Blah.class.getCanonicalName() + "." + name);
      }
    }
  }

Since this don't give any additional value to the valueOf(String name) method, it only makes sense to define an additional method if we want have a different behavior. If we don't want to raise an IllegalArgumentException we can change the implementation to:

  private enum Blah {
    A, B, C, D;

    public static Blah valueOfOrDefault(String name, Blah defaultValue) {
      switch (name) {
        case "A":
          return A;
        case "B":
          return B;
        case "C":
          return C;
        case "D":
          return D;
        default:
          if (defaultValue == null) {
            throw new NullPointerException();
          }
          return defaultValue;
      }
    }
  }

By providing a default value we keep the contract of Enum.valueOf(String name) without throwing an IllegalArgumentException in that manner that in no case null is returned. Therefore we throw a NullPointerException if the name is null and in case of default if defaultValue is null. That's how valueOfOrDefault works.

This approach adopts the design of the Map-Interface which provides a method Map.getOrDefault(Object key, V defaultValue) as of Java 8.