Question

I often have a situation in my Java code when I need to set a boolean flag inside an inner class. It is not possible to use primitive boolean type for that, because inner class could only work with final variables from outside, so I use pattern like this:

// class from gnu.trove is not of big importance, just to have an example
private final TIntIntHashMap team = new TIntIntHashMap();
// ....... code ............
final boolean[] flag = new boolean[]{false};
team.forEachValue(new TIntProcedure() {
    @Override
    public boolean execute(int score) {
        if(score >= VICTORY_SCORE) {
            flag[0] = true;
        } 
        return true; // to continue iteration over hash map values
    }
});
//  ....... code ..............

The pattern of final array instead of non-final variable works well, except it is not look beautiful enough to me. Does someone know better pattern in Java ?

Answer 1

There are situations where this is the best pattern.

The only improvement I can suggest is return false when you have found a match.