Is this the cleanest way to repeat method call in Java?

Question

The following looks like messy code, but I can't think how to make it neater. Any ideas? I want to call doSearch for values of 10, 20 and 30. If no results are returned for a value, then I want to try for the following value. Otherwise, just exit out. I know this would work, but is it the most readable way?

SearchResult result = doSearch("10");
if (result.getResults() == null) {
  result = doSearch("20");
  if (result.getResults() == null) {
    result = doSearch("30");
    if (result.getResults() == null) {
      // put code to deal with lack of results here
    }
  }
}

aioobe · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-23T10:01:38.743

4

Here's a suggestion:

SearchResult result = null;
for (String attempt : "10,20,30".split(","))
    if ((result = doSearch(attempt)) != null)
        break;

if (result == null) {
    // put code to deal with lack of results here
}

(as suggested by Marko Topolnik in the comments.)

edited May 23 '12 at 10:01

answered May 23 '12 at 09:55

aioobe

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The check `i >= attempts.length + 1` doesn't make a lot of sense as it can never evaluate to true. The code either breaks with `ArrayIndexOutOfBounds` or the check returns false. – Marko Topolnik May 23 '12 at 10:00
`int i; for (i = 0; i < attempts.length; i++) if ((result = doSearch(attempts[i])) != null) break; if (result == null) // put code to deal with lack of results here` – Marko Topolnik May 23 '12 at 10:03
Yeah the for loop looks tidier. Thanks guys. – edwardmlyte May 23 '12 at 10:06
+1 Nice twist! If using a `static import`, you can also say `String attempt : asList("10", "20", "30")` – Marko Topolnik May 23 '12 at 10:08
Ah, yeah. I would actually say that that's one of the few cases where a static import doesn't reduced readability :-) – aioobe May 23 '12 at 10:10
Yeah, try importing `Integer.valueOf` for a WTF-effect :) – Marko Topolnik May 23 '12 at 10:11

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '12 at 09:53

2

You can store the search strings in a String[], then loop through the array and call doSearch().

answered May 23 '12 at 09:53

nhahtdh

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 23 '12 at 09:55

1

int [] searchValues = {10, 20, 30};


for(int i=0; i<searchValues.length; i++) {
   SearchResult result = doSearch(searchValues[i]);
   if (result.getResults() != null) {
       return result;
   }
}

// put code to deal with lack of results here

answered May 23 '12 at 09:55

kgiannakakis

100,996
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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 23 '12 at 10:16

I'd go with something like this:

SearchResult result = null;
for (int i=10; i<=30 && result == null; i+=10) {
    result = doSearch(i);
}
if (result == null) {
    // throw a meaningful business exception here
}

Since numbers are numbers, I didn't think that iterating through their String representations is a good idea.

Is this the cleanest way to repeat method call in Java?

4 Answers4

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