A Problem Solved: Defining the Class Temperature

The enumeration

As we mentioned in the previous lesson, we want to use an enumeration to represent the scale of the temperature. We saw then that the client of the class Temperature uses this enumeration. However, we also want Temperature itself to use it. If we define an enumeration within a class, it is private and can be used only within that class. Here we want the client and Temperature to use the enumeration. As we know from the previous chapter, an enumeration is actually a class. Thus, we made the enumeration public and defined it within its own file, just as we do with other classes that we write.

Let’s recall the definition of the enumeration Scale from the previous lesson and store it in the file Scale.java: