Talk:Blogs:AndreiBadea:EnumsInAPIs

Normally in a release version one wouldn't want any asserts enabled so maybe not a very big problem? The general principle is if you are designing a library you don't make any assumptions on how your client calls your API. Perhaps I'm wrong though...

--Alex 20:21, 16 July 2008 (CEST)

In this example, if the user wanted to ensure that he covers all the fields of the enumeration, then he wrote something wrong, he should not have the "default:" case.

If the switch covers all the fields of the enumeration, the "default:" is not needed and not warnings/errors are generated at compile time.

We can also assume that if the user use the default close here, his meaning is not to cover all the fields of the enumeration, but to only cover a subset and throw an assert exception when encounter a field of the complementary subset or null.

--Vincent Cantin 03:26, 17 July 2008 (CEST)

To Alex: I have also seen IllegalStateException's thrown instead of an assert statement. Regarding the assumptions, you are right. But this case looks like one where you could want to break the rule. Not being able to add fields to the enum could be a big limitation.

To Vincent: you are right, many people have a default branch just to be sure, even when they know they have covered all fields of the enum (of the current version of the enum, that is).

--AndreiBadea 15:41, 17 July 2008 (CEST)