Question

Iam wondering about the best way to prevent accessing to multiple loops in a scalable way

String token;
ArrayList numbers;
ArrayList names;

for(String n : numbers){
   if(token.equals(n)){
      break;
   }
}

for(String n : names){
   if(token.equals(n)){
      break;
   }
}

I want to skip accessing the 2nd loop if i found a hit on the first one but i want to do it in a scalable way because maybe later i will have 5 lists

Solutions that i thought about

1. Make multiple returns inside the loops, but this is not a good programming technique

2. Set a flag and use it in the other loops(either by if condition or put it in the loop condition, but when we have 5 different lists, it means i will have 5 flags and checks on the loop before me.

I would appreciate your suggestions. Thank you

Answer 1

public static boolean contains (Object element, Collection <?> ... collections)
{
    for (Collection c: collections)
        if (c.contains (element)) return true;

    return false;
}