Question

So while rewriting some code, I came across something along the lines of:

Method 1

while ( iter.hasNext() ) {
    Object obj = iter.next();
    if ( obj instanceof Something ) {
        returnValue = (Something) obj;
        break;
    }
}

I re-wrote it as the following without much thought (the actual purpose of the re-write was for other logic in this method):

Method 2

while ( (iter.hasNext()) && (returnValue == null) ) {
    Object obj = iter.next();
    if ( obj instanceof Something ) {
        returnValue = (Something) obj;
    }
}

I personally don’t have any strong preference for either and really don’t see anything wrong with either approach. Can anyone else think of benefits or consequences of using either approach? The variable, returnValue is returned. How would people feel if that was the last block in the method, and it is just returned?

EDIT: So here’s what I’m doing: Currently this method takes a set of authorizations and validates them – returning a boolean. This method allows grouping so you can specify that at least one or all (meaning if at least one authorization is valid, pass the whole set). However, this method does not support levels of authorization which is what I’m changing it to do so that each level can specify different grouping. All this bit is just background information…does not have that much to do with the above code – an alternative method is used to perform the above block of code.

Answer 1

Clearer, for me, would be to extract this as a method of its own; then you can simply return the value rather than assigning it to a local.

while (iter.hasNext()) {
    Object obj = iter.next();
    if (obj instanceof Something)
        return (Something)obj;
}
return null;

Better yet would be a foreach loop

for (Object o : yourList)
    if (o instanceof Something)
        return (Something)o
return null;