Question

Assuming you want to test if an input is one of several constant Strings, and ignoring performance, is it an anti-pattern to code:

if ("yes oui ja da".contains(answer)) {
    // answer was in the affirmative
}

instead of the more conventional:

private static List<String> affirmativeAnswers = Arrays.asList("yes", "oui", "ja", "da");

if (affirmativeAnswers.contains(answer)) {
    // answer was in the affirmative
}

It’s a lot less code and easier to read, but is it a "hack"?

Edit:

For more safety, if you are worried about partial matches, you can code it as:

if (",yes,oui,ja,da,".contains(',' + answer + ',')) 

It’s still much less code (although getting ugly)

Answer 1

… is it an abuse of the language …

“Java – he don’t care!!”. But “Eww!! Nasty!!”¹.

But seriously, you should be aiming to make your code easy to read and easy to maintain. (Or performant … if that matters.)

Tricky, obscure code that expresses something using the minimum number of keystrokes is none of the above. It is bad style … even if you get the code functionally correct.

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^{1 – if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so … I’m alluding to this – http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/honey-badger.}