How to return multiple objects from a Java method?

Question

I want to return two objects from a Java method and was wondering what could be a good way of doing so?

The possible ways I can think of are: return a HashMap<

Answer 1

If you want to return two objects you usually want to return a single object that encapsulates the two objects instead.

You could return a List of NamedObject objects like this:

public class NamedObject {
  public final String name;
  public final T object;

  public NamedObject(String name, T object) {
    this.name = name;
    this.object = object;
  }
}

Then you can easily return a List>.

Also: Why would you want to return a comma-separated list of names instead of a List? Or better yet, return a Map with the keys being the names and the values the objects (unless your objects have specified order, in which case a NavigableMap might be what you want.