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From: Steven Simpson <ss@domain.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: Call by Result
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2011 09:09:05 +0100
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On 10/06/11 07:03, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>      I am writing a simple preprocessor.  I have a few spots where a
> string needs to be parsed.  I want to call something like this:
>           String ReturnString="";
>           boolean DidItWork=GetString(ReturnString);
>           if (!DidItWork)
>              // too bad

I don't think the following suggestion has been covered exactly.  Split
GetString() into two methods: the first testing for the string, storing
it in the containing class, and returning true or false; the second
simply retrieving the last string.

I'm assuming that GetString is non-static for this.

class Parser {
  /**
   * Attempt to parse a string. If successful, the result
   * is obtained from {@link #getLastString()}.
   *
   * @return true if a string was parsed
   */
  public boolean parseString() { ... }
  public String getLastString() { ... }
}

if (parser.parseString()) {
  doSomethingWith(parser.getLastString());
}