I find that the implementation shown below is more Java-ish. It would have some advantages when branching based on a ResourceType value, etc. No errors show up when I use this in Eclipse. YMMV. -W public enum ResourceType { DRL ( "Drools Rule Language", "drl" ), XDRL ( "Drools XML Rule Language", "xdrl" ), DSL ( "Drools DSL", "dsl" ), DSLR ( "Drools DSL Rule", "dslr" ), DRF ( "Drools Rule Flow Language", "rf" ), BPMN2 ( "Drools BPMN2 Language", "bpmn" ), DTABLE ( "Decision Table", "xls" ), PKG ( "Binary Package", "pkg" ), BRL ( "Drools Business Rule Language", "brl" ), CHANGE_SET( "Change Set", "xcs" ), XSD ( "XSD", "xsd" ); private String description; private String defaultExtension; ResourceType( String description, String defaultExtension ) { this.description = description; this.defaultExtension = defaultExtension; } public static ResourceType getResourceType(final String resourceName) { return valueOf( resourceName ); } public static ResourceType determineResourceType( final String resourceName ) { try{ return valueOf( resourceName ); } catch( Exception iae ){ return null; } } public boolean matchesExtension( String resourceName ) { return resourceName != null && resourceName.endsWith( "."+defaultExtension ); } public String getDefaultExtension() { return defaultExtension; } public String getDescription() { return description; } public String getName() { return this.name(); } @Override public String toString() { return "ResourceType = '" + this.description + "'"; } }