How do you return two values from a single method?

Question

When your in a situation where you need to return two things in a single method, what is the best approach?

I understand the philosophy that a method should do one t

Answer 1

I generally use tuples. I mainly work in C# and its very easy to design generic tuple constructs. I assume it would be very similar for most languages which have generics. As an aside, 1 is a terrible idea, and 3 only works when you are getting two returns that are the same type unless you work in a language where everything derives from the same basic type (i.e. object). 2 and 4 are also good choices. 2 doesn't introduce any side effects a priori, its just unwieldy.