Is there a simpler way to check multiple values against one value in an if-statement?

Question

Basically, what I want to do is check two integers against a given value, therefore, classically what you would do is something like this:

//just to get some         


        

Answer 1

I think that a bit-wise OR:

if ((a | b) == 0) . . .

would work if you want to check specifically for 0. I'm not sure if this saves any execution time. More to the point, it makes for cryptic code, which will make the future maintainer of this code curse you (even if its yourself). I recommend sticking with the more-typing option.

Bah. I misread OP's original logic.

Another go...

If you want to test whether any one of many variables is equal to an expected value, a generic function might work:

public  boolean exists(T target, T... values) {
    for (T value : values) {
        if (target == null) {
            if (value == null) {
                return true;
            }
        } else if (target.equals(value)) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

This will work for any number of objects of one type. Primitives will be autoboxed so it will work with them as well. Your original code will be something like:

if (test(0, a, b)) {
    // do something
}

(A better method name would be desperately needed to even consider whether this an improvement over what you have now. Even if the test expands to 3 or 4 variables, I question the need for this kind of thing.) Note that this also works with arrays:

int[] values = { . . . };
if (test(0, values)) { . . .

and it can be used to test whether an array (or any of a collection of variables) is null.