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

After checking the Oracle JavaBean pages I didn't find anything which explicitly tells you that the setters need to be void. Nevertheless all examples have void set-methods.

The PropertyDescriptor in the Java API support non-void setters, so I think it should be pretty safe to let your setters return this. To be on the safe side you should probably check out if the frameworks you intend to use that uses reflection. For instance didn't Spring support non-void setters in xml config prior to version 3.1.