Is it possible to return more than one value from a method in Java? [duplicate]

Question

I am using a simulator to play craps and I am trying to return two values from the same method (or rather I would like to).

When I wrote my return statement I simply tried putting "&" which compiled and runs properly; but I have no way of accessing the second returned value.

public static int crapsGame(){
  int myPoint;
  int gameStatus = rollagain;
  int d1,d2;
  int rolls=1;

  d1 = rollDice();
  d2 = rollDice();
  switch ( d1+d2 ) {
    case 7: 
    case 11:
      gameStatus = win;
      break;
    case 2: 
    case 3: 
    case 12:
      gameStatus = loss;
      break;
    default:
      myPoint = d1+d2;
      do {
        d1=rollDice();
        d2=rollDice();
        rolls++;
        if ( d1+d2 == myPoint )
          gameStatus = win;
        else if ( d1+d2 == 7 )
          gameStatus = loss;
       } while (gameStatus == rollagain);
  } // end of switch
  return gameStatus & rolls;
}

When I return the value as:

gameStatus=crapsGame();

It appropriately sets the varaible to win or lose but if I try something as simple as following that statement with:

rolls=crapsGame();

It is assigned the same value as gamestatus...a 0 or a 1 (win or lose). Any way that I can access the second returned value? Or is there a completely different way to go about it?

Answer 1

Create your own value holder object to hold both values, then return it.

return new ValueHolder(gameStatus, rolls);

It's possible to return an array with multiple values, but that's cryptic and it does nothing for readability. It's much easier to understand what this means...

valueHolder.getGameStatus()

than what this means.

intArray[0]

Answer 2

returning gameStatus & rolls means "return the bitwise and of gameStatus and rolls" which probably is not what you want

you have some options here:

• return an array
• create a class that represents the response with a property for each value and return an instance
• use one of the many java collections to return the values (probably lists or maps)