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

I have a been using a very basic approach to deal with problems of multiple returns. It serves the purpose, and avoids complexity.

I call it the string separator Approach

And it is effective as it can even return values of Multiple Types e.g. int,double,char,string etc

In this approach we make a use of a string that is very unlikely to occur generally. We call it as a separator. This separator would be used to separate various values when used in a function

For example we will have our final return as (for example) intValue separator doubleValue separator... And Then using this string we will retrieve all the information required, that can be of diffrent types as well

Following code will Show the working of this concept

The separator used is !@# and 3 values are being returned intVal,doubleVal and stringVal

        public class TestMultipleReturns {

            public static String multipleVals() {

                String result = "";
                String separator = "!@#";


                int intVal = 5;
                // Code to process intVal

                double doubleVal = 3.14;
                // Code to process doubleVal

                String stringVal = "hello";
                // Code to process Int intVal

                result = intVal + separator + doubleVal + separator + stringVal + separator;
                return (result);
            }

            public static void main(String[] args) {

                String res = multipleVals();

                int intVal = Integer.parseInt(res.split("!@#")[0]);
                // Code to process intVal

                double doubleVal = Double.parseDouble(res.split("!@#")[1]);
                // Code to process doubleVal

                String stringVal = res.split("!@#")[2];

                System.out.println(intVal+"\n"+doubleVal+"\n"+stringVal);
            }
        }

OUTPUT

5
3.14
hello
BUILD SUCCESSFUL (total time: 2 seconds)