Does Java bean's setter permit return this?

Question

can I define setter method to return this rather than void?

Like:

ClassA setItem1() {
      return this;
}

ClassA setItem2() {
      return this;
}
         


        

Answer 1

No reason you couldn't do that. Personally, if the setters are being used during object creation, I'd name them withItem1() and withItem2().

ClassA obj = new ClassA().withItem1(item1).withItem2(item2);

Makes it a bit clearer (to me anyway) what the intent of the methods are.