Is there an elegant way to get the first non null value of multiple method returns in Java?

Question

You have already seen this many times yourself, of that I\'m sure:

public SomeObject findSomeObject(Arguments args) {
    SomeObject so = queryFirstSource(args);         


        

Answer 1

Yes, there is:

Arrays.asList(source1, source2, ...)
   .stream()
   .filter(s -> s != null)
   .findFirst();

This is more flexible, since it returns an Optional not null in case a not-null source is found.

Edit: If you want lazy evaluation you should use a Supplier:

Arrays.>asList(sourceFactory::getSource1, sourceFactory::getSource2, ...)
   .stream()
   .filter(s -> s.get() != null)
   .findFirst();