Java Enums

When Java (1.)5 came out with the new enum facilities, I thought it was cool, but I wasn't sure how practical it was. Allowing members and methods on enums? It seemed weird. Of course, this was coming from a C(++) background where an enum is just a thinly disguised integer.

But now that I'm programming in Java I'm actually finding these facilities quite useful. For example, in the lexical scanner Token class I attach various information to the tokens:

• the string "name" in the case of keywords
• the "matching" token for parenthesis, braces, and brackets
  
• whether it's an infix or assignment operator

I use a separate TokenFeature enum for the infix and assignment features, and store them using an EnumSet, which represents them as bits in an integer (for small sets).

The only awkward part is having to define a bunch of different constructors.

Having this information attached to the tokens simplifies the code quite a bit, avoids duplicating the information in several places, and makes it easy to maintain.

PS. Looking back at the code, I think it could be simplified. All assignment operators are infix (at least for my purposes) so I don't really need a set of features, the infix method could just check for INFIX or ASSIGN. Sigh ... sometimes it seems like the refactoring never ends!