public static const UPSIDE_DOWN:Orientation = new Orientation();

However, if this is a client app getting data from the server, the server value might be the camelcase version of the value, i.e. “upsideDown”, instead of a lowercase underscore delimited version. I don’t know if that is a pretty rare case for folks, but I thought I’d note it and say that it could be worked around by changing the “toLowerCase() in the EnumConstants constructor and in the ParseConstants function to something like “toLowerCase().replace(/_/gi, “”)”.

Thanks again!

E.g.:

package
{
	import flash.display.Sprite;

	public class TestOrder extends Sprite
	{

		public function TestOrder()
		{
			trace( "--- creating State" );
			var s:State = new State;
			trace( "--- finished creating State" );
		}

	}

}

// shortened enum class
class Enum
{
	protected static function init():void
	{
		trace( "Init function on enum" );
	}

	public function Enum()
	{
		trace( "Constructor for Enum" );
	}
}

// the enum that we're creating
class State extends Enum
{
	{
		trace( "Static constructor for State" );
		init();
	}

	public static const BLAH:State = new State;
}

Here, my trace is:

Constructor for Enum
Static constructor for State
Init function on enum
— creating State
Constructor for Enum
— finished creating State

Where the “Static constructor for State” should be before “Constructor for Enum” for your code to work or it fails on the error “Enum constants can only be constructed as static consts…”.

Is this how it works your end as well, or am I missing something basic?

I think I’m going to have to split out the Enum constructor code to an init function.

In any case, thanks for the excellent class!

package my.package.enum
{
  public class Enum
  {
    ...
  }
}

class EnumConstants
{
  import my.package.enum.Enum; /* this fixed my problem */

  ...
}

BTW: I’m using Flash Builder 4.0 with the Flex SDK 4 (and AS3 but that should not be a surprise).
I wonder why I had to add this import statement.

Thanks for this Enum class and examples. I really like it!

Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Enum.

Any idea?

I think that minimizing class name usage within the enum class is a good idea, in order to reduce copy-paste error. Perhaps it would be better to have a

private static const _enumType :Class = ThisEnumClassName;

…and then reference that from functions like GetConstants as well as the original initEnum() call. Note that I haven’t tried this out, but if it compiles, it’s probably a good way to reduce copy-paste errors.

The problem I have with a helper class is that it’s still necessarily generic, and so you lose the type safety you get with NetError.ParseConstant. You could inherit from the helper class to provide type-specific behavior but then it’s back to having the classname in multiple places.