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Java Enum ordinal() method with example

Enum Class ordinal() method: Here, we are going to learn about the ordinal() method of Enum Class with its syntax and example.
Submitted by Preeti Jain, on December 06, 2019

Enum Class ordinal() method

• ordinal() method is available in java.lang package.
• ordinal() method is used to return the position of this enum constants is whatever defined in its enum declaration and the position of starting element of enum constant starts from 0.
• ordinal() method is a non-static method, it is accessible with the class object only and if we try to access the method with the class name then we will get an error.
• ordinal() method is a final method, it does not override in child class.
• This method does not throw an exception at the time of returning the position of the enum constants.

Syntax:

    public final int ordinal();

Parameter(s):

• It does not accept any parameter.

Return value:

The return type of this method is int, it returns the position of this enum constant.

Example:

// Java program to demonstrate the example 
// of int ordinal() of Enum class


enum Month {

    JAN,
    FEB,
    MAR,
    APR,
    MAY;
}

public class Ordinal {
    public static void main(String args[]) {

        Month m1 = Month.JAN;
        Month m2 = Month.FEB;
        Month m3 = Month.MAR;
        Month m4 = Month.APR;
        Month m5 = Month.MAY;

        System.out.println("Display Ordinal: ");
        // By using ordinal() method is to return the position of
        //enum constant in its enum definition 
        System.out.println("m1.ordinal() " + " " + m1.ordinal());
        System.out.println("m2.ordinal()" + " " + m2.ordinal());
        System.out.println("m3.ordinal()" + " " + m3.ordinal());
        System.out.println("m4.ordinal()" + " " + m4.ordinal());
        System.out.println("m5.ordinal()" + " " + m5.ordinal());
    }
}

Output

Display Ordinal: 
m1.ordinal()  0
m2.ordinal() 1
m3.ordinal() 2
m4.ordinal() 3
m5.ordinal() 4