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Procedure documentationEnumeration Type Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

An enumeration type allows you to define an abstract type that holds a list of values of the same primitive Java type that are logically related in a given context. An enumeration type is said to have a base type. Here the base type refers to the type of data that this enumeration type can hold.

Example Example

An if-then rule to determine the price of the drug depending on the drug type is as follows:

If

Drug type equals cancer_drug

Then

Assign price = 500

In real world situations, you typically have many drugs and you will have an if-then rule or a decision table row for each drug. If you manually enter each drug type, the whole process is likely to be error prone.

The alternative solution using an enumeration type is:

  • Define an enumeration type called All Drug Types

  • Populate this enumeration type with all the drug types such as Cancer_Drug, Vitamin_Drug, Flu_Drug

  • Locate the alias Drug Type, and change its return type to All Drug Types

This will get reflected in an if-then rule as follows:

If

Drug type equals (all drug type appear in a drop down menu)

Then

Assign price = 500

End of the example.