How to return multiple objects from a Java method?

Question

I want to return two objects from a Java method and was wondering what could be a good way of doing so?

The possible ways I can think of are: return a HashMap<

Answer 1

In the event the method you're calling is private, or called from one location, try

return new Object[]{value1, value2};

The caller looks like:

Object[] temp=myMethod(parameters);
Type1 value1=(Type1)temp[0];  //For code clarity: temp[0] is not descriptive
Type2 value2=(Type2)temp[1];

The Pair example by David Hanak has no syntactic benefit, and is limited to two values.

return new Pair(value1, value2);

And the caller looks like:

Pair temp=myMethod(parameters);
Type1 value1=temp.a;  //For code clarity: temp.a is not descriptive
Type2 value2=temp.b;