Understanding Attributes Enum in ADF BC Row Class

Did you ever wonder why Attributes Enum is generated by JDeveloper in Entity or View Row class? Attributes Enum holds a collection of attribute names and there is a set of static variables with attribute indexes. These indexes are used to locate attribute in getter/setter. Attributes Enum is a structure which is required for JDeveloper on design time to generate Java code. On runtime Attributes Enum is needed only as long as you are using a static variable index in the getter/setter.

Attributes Enum and list of static indexes in View Row class:

Static index is used in the getter/setter to access attribute:

Attributes Enum is mimicking attributes order in the VO/EO. You can think about it as about attributes metadata. It is not mandatory to use index from Attributes Enum. In some use cases, you could get attribute index directly from VO/EO Def and use it to access attribute:

First name is fetched correctly using overridden getter:

Download sample code from GitHub