here is my code that works, but is not very smart. It just does a
linear search.
package com.mindprod.pricelist;

/**
* constants for Application categories
*/
public enum AppCat {

  /* short name, description, aliases */

  APPLET( "Applet", "Java Applet", "applet" ),
  APPLICATION( "application", "Java application", "application"),
  DOCUMENTATION( "documentation", "documentation" , "documentation"
),
  HYBRID( "hybrid", "Java Applet that can also be run as an
application", "hybrid" ),
  JWS( "Java Web Start" ,"Java Web Start", "jws", "weblet",
"webstart", "jaws" ),
  LIBRARY( "Class" , "Class library", "class", "classes", "library"
),
  SERVLET( "servlet", "Java Servlet", "servlet" ),
  UTILITY( "Utility", "non-Java Utility", "utility" );

  /**
   * constructor for an enum constant
   * @param human output description.
   * @param ShorName for display
   * @param description long description
   * @param aliases other names for string input
   */
  AppCat( String shortName, String description, String... aliases )
     {
     this.shortName = shortName;
     this.description = description;
     this.aliases = aliases;
     }

 private String shortName;

 private String description;

  /**
   * cannot use String... here, only in parm list
   * alterate input names for the alias
   */
 private String[] aliases;

  public String getShortName()
     {
     return shortName;
     }

  public String getDescription()
     {
     return description;
     }

  public String[] getAliases()
     {
     return aliases;
     }
  // you may not redefine valueOf since has been covertly defined in
this class

  public static AppCat valueOfAlias ( String s )
     {
     try
        {
        return valueOf( AppCat.class, s );
        }
     catch ( IllegalArgumentException e )
        {
        // usual method failed, try looking up alias
        // This seems long winded, why no HashSet?
        // Because Java won't let me access a static common
        // lookup in the enum constructors.
        for ( AppCat candidateEnum : AppCat.values() )
           {

           for ( String candidateString : candidateEnum.getAliases()
)
              {
              if ( candidateString.equalsIgnoreCase( s ) )
                 {
                 return candidateEnum;
                 }
              }
           }
        // fell out the bottom of search over all enums and aliases
        // give up

        throw new IllegalArgumentException( "unknown Application
Category: " + s);

        }

     }
}