Question

I have a method returning long and there are cases where a valid result can not be computed. Double has the NaN constant, which is not expressable in long.

I can think of two solutions:

• throw an exception
• change the method’s signature to return double, check for NaN and convert to long if everything is fine.

Is either preferrable / more “Javanic”? Are there other ways / Did I miss something obvious?

Answer 1

You can make the return-type Long (the boxed version of long) and return null.