You could avoid the “lack of type safety” and “not enough information” problems by using java.lang.String constants. For example, you might specify static final String DIR_NORTH = "NORTH";.

n "Constants" (JavaWorld, March 30, 2001), I wrote, "I'd be interested to hear how others declare their constants and why. I can post your responses in a future Q&A." Well, here are some reader ...

Java string object example. In Java, a string is an object that represents a number of character values. Each letter in the string is a separate character value that makes up the Java string object.