How to write Java function that returns values of multiple data types?

Question

For example, I want to create a function that can return any number (negative, zero, or positive).

However, based on certain exceptions, I\'d like the function to re

Answer 1

no. the best you can do is return on instance of a class that handles all the things you might want to return.

something like

public class ReturnObj {
   public bool yesno; // yes or no
   public int val; // for int values
   public String mode; // mode describing what you returned, which the caller will need to understand.
}

obviously, you need to play with the names....

Also, this seems like a code smell. You might be able to remove the need to do something like this by qualifying what path you want outside of your function, and then call a specific function to get a boolean or a specific function to get an int, depending on the qualification.