Best way to return status flag and message from a method in Java

Question

I have a deceptively simple scenario, and I want a simple solution, but it\'s not obvious which is \"most correct\" or \"most Java\".

Let\'s say I have a small authe

Answer 1

Returning a small object with both the boolean flag and the String inside is probably the most OO-like way of doing it, although I agree that it seems overkill for a simple case like this.

Another alternative is to always return a String, and have null (or an empty String - you choose which) indicate success. As long as the return values are clearly explained in the javadocs there shouldn't be any confusion.