Question

Is there in one of the specifications any reference to methods that start with “is”, while the suffix of the method’s name is a property’s name (similar to getter/setter methods of Java beans)?

For example:

public boolean isConditionTrue() {
   ...
   ...
}

private boolean conditionTrue;

Thanks!

Answer 1

is only valid for primitive boolean. Here is an excerpt from the spec:

8.3.2 Boolean properties
In addition, for boolean properties, we allow a getter method to match the pattern:
public boolean is();
This “is” method may be provided instead of a “get” meth-
od, or it may be provided in addition to a “get” method.
In either case, if the “is” method is present for a boolean property then we will
use the “is” method to read the property value.
An example boolean property might be:
public boolean isMarsupial();
public void setMarsupial(boolean m);

Be aware of using isXxx() : Boolean functions if you are going to use them in conjunction with things like JSTL tags (using ${object.xxx} syntax). They won’t pick it up and you have to modify it to getXxx() : Boolean.