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At 5:04 PM +0100 9/23/02, Bill de hÓra wrote: >If you look at the 1.2 collections API, you find that methods do on >occasion return when there are side effects on the underlying data >structure. For example, a remove(key) call will return the removed >value. So I think there's an argument to be had that it's reasonable for >an append() call, which changes the underlying data structure to return >a value. See Map.put() for an example, but be aware that returning true >or false is also an option; see Collection.add() for an example of that. > Yes, but on the other hand you have methods like this one in java.util.List: public void add(int index, Object element) I can't say I find the collections API to be incredibly consistent about return types. When we arguing similar points in JDOM, I noticed that all sides of the debate could find justification for their position somewhere in the Collections API. :-) -- +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@m... | Writer/Programmer | +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | XML in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002) | | http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian2/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://www.cafeaulait.org/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.cafeconleche.org/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
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