What is the equivalent of the C++ Pair in Java?

Question

Is there a good reason why there is no Pair in Java? What would be the equivalent of this C++ construct? I would rather avoid reimplementing my own.<

Answer 1

The biggest problem is probably that one can't ensure immutability on A and B (see How to ensure that type parameters are immutable) so hashCode() may give inconsistent results for the same Pair after is inserted in a collection for instance (this would give undefined behavior, see Defining equals in terms of mutable fields). For a particular (non generic) Pair class the programmer may ensure immutability by carefully choosing A and B to be immutable.

Anyway, clearing generic's warnings from @PeterLawrey's answer (java 1.7) :

public class Pair,
                    B extends Comparable>
        implements Comparable> {

    public final A first;
    public final B second;

    private Pair(A first, B second) {
        this.first = first;
        this.second = second;
    }

    public static ,
                    B extends Comparable>
            Pair of(A first, B second) {
        return new Pair(first, second);
    }

    @Override
    public int compareTo(Pair o) {
        int cmp = o == null ? 1 : (this.first).compareTo(o.first);
        return cmp == 0 ? (this.second).compareTo(o.second) : cmp;
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return 31 * hashcode(first) + hashcode(second);
    }

    // TODO : move this to a helper class.
    private static int hashcode(Object o) {
        return o == null ? 0 : o.hashCode();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if (!(obj instanceof Pair))
            return false;
        if (this == obj)
            return true;
        return equal(first, ((Pair) obj).first)
                && equal(second, ((Pair) obj).second);
    }

    // TODO : move this to a helper class.
    private boolean equal(Object o1, Object o2) {
        return o1 == o2 || (o1 != null && o1.equals(o2));
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "(" + first + ", " + second + ')';
    }
}

Additions/corrections much welcome :) In particular I am not quite sure about my use of Pair.

For more info on why this syntax see Ensure that objects implement Comparable and for a detailed explanation How to implement a generic max(Comparable a, Comparable b) function in Java?