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

I would choose the Exception option in first place.

But, in second place, I would prefer the C-style technique:

public boolean authenticate(Client client, final StringBuilder sb) {
    if (sb == null)
        throw new IllegalArgumentException();
    if (isOK()) {
        sb.append("info message");
        return true;
    } else {
        sb.append("error message");
        return false;
    }
}

This is not so strange and it's done in many places in the framework.