Question

protected int xMethod (Integer a, Integer b) {
  if (a<b)
    return 1
  else if (a>b)
    return 2
  else
    return 3
}

I wonder if there is some way of rewriting above method differently in groovy? as now is very Java style.

Answer 1

It seems that the function just needs to return 3 different values depending on whether a is less than, equal to, or greater than b. There is already an operator in Groovy that does this:

a <=> b

The return values are -1, 0 and 1. Perhaps the best thing to do is refactor the code to use this operator instead of xMethod, if that is possible.

Of course, if the precise values 1, 2 and 3 are important and not just 3 distinct values then you can’t do this.