Java: Check if enum contains a given string?

Use the Apache commons lang3 lib instead

 EnumUtils.isValidEnum(MyEnum.class, myValue)

This should do it:

public static boolean contains(String test) {    for (Choice c : Choice.values()) {        if (c.name().equals(test)) {            return true;        }    }    return false;}

This way means you do not have to worry about adding additional enum values later, they are all checked.

Edit: If the enum is very large you could stick the values in a HashSet:

public static HashSet<String> getEnums() {  HashSet<String> values = new HashSet<String>();  for (Choice c : Choice.values()) {      values.add(c.name());  }  return values;}

Then you can just do: values.contains("your string") which returns true or false.

You can use Enum.valueOf()

enum Choices{A1, A2, B1, B2};public class MainClass {  public static void main(String args[]) {    Choices day;    try {       day = Choices.valueOf("A1");       //yes    } catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) {          //nope  }}

If you expect the check to fail often, you might be better off using a simple loop as other have shown - if your enums contain many values, perhaps builda HashSet or similar of your enum values converted to a string and query that HashSet instead.