Compacting if else statement into shorter more elegant code

Question

I have the following if-else block, and I'm wondering if there's a more elegant way this code could be written... I am using Java 8

if(valueString != null) {
    return valueString;
}
else if(valueInt != null) {
    return String.valueOf(valueInt);
}
else if(valueFloat != null) {
    return String.valueOf(valueFloat);
}
else if(valueDate != null){
    return String.valueOf(valueDate);
}
else if(valueBit != null) {
    return String.valueOf(valueBit);
}
else {
    return null;
}

Are your values mutually exclusive / is that order corresponding to the desired priorities of the return values? — Syn, May 03 '18 at 11:35
You don't actually have to use if-else since you are returning values. You could directly use if as the function ends when a return statement is executed — Yashovardhan99, May 03 '18 at 11:36
First, if you returning first you don't need any else statement — Marcos Vasconcelos, May 03 '18 at 13:51

Yassin Hajaj · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-03T13:27:26.980

15

Use a stream and go through all the values and return null if none of them is not null.

return Stream.of(valueString, valueInt, valueFloat, valueDate, valueBit)
             .filter(Objects::nonNull)
             .map(String::valueOf)
             .findFirst().orElse(null);

edited May 03 '18 at 13:27

answered May 03 '18 at 11:35

Yassin Hajaj

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3

@YassinHajaj instead of `x -> x != null` you can use `Objects::nonNull`. I find a method reference looking nicer than a lambda, but that's really just a preference. – Jaroslaw Pawlak May 03 '18 at 11:43

Compacting if else statement into shorter more elegant code

1 Answers1