Multiple Return Values in Minitab
Java supports multiple return values through the use of custom objects or arrays. In this example, we’ll use a custom object to demonstrate a similar concept.
import java.util.Arrays;
public class MultipleReturnValues {
// This class represents the multiple return values
static class Pair {
int first;
int second;
Pair(int first, int second) {
this.first = first;
this.second = second;
}
}
// This method returns a Pair object containing two int values
public static Pair vals() {
return new Pair(3, 7);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Here we use the Pair object to get multiple return values
Pair result = vals();
System.out.println(result.first);
System.out.println(result.second);
// If you only want a subset of the returned values,
// you can simply ignore the ones you don't need
Pair result2 = vals();
System.out.println(result2.second);
}
}
To run the program:
$ javac MultipleReturnValues.java
$ java MultipleReturnValues
3
7
7
In Java, we don’t have built-in support for multiple return values like in some other languages. However, we can achieve similar functionality by using custom objects, as demonstrated in this example with the Pair
class.
The vals()
method returns a Pair
object containing two int
values. In the main
method, we call vals()
and access the returned values using the first
and second
fields of the Pair
object.
If you only need a subset of the returned values, you can simply ignore the ones you don’t need by not using them, as shown in the last part of the main
method.
This approach provides a way to return and handle multiple values in Java, although it’s not as concise as in some other languages. For more complex cases with more than two values, you might want to create a custom class with meaningful field names instead of using a generic Pair
class.
Next, we’ll look at how Java handles methods with a variable number of arguments.