return

The return keyword has two purposes: It specifies what value a method will return (if it doesn’t have a void return value) and it causes that value to be returned immediately. The preceding test( ) method can be rewritten to take advantage of this:

//: c03:IfElse2.java
import com.bruceeckel.simpletest.*;

public class IfElse2 {
  static Test monitor = new Test();
  static int test(int testval, int target) {
    if(testval > target)
      return +1;
    else if(testval < target)
      return -1;
    else
      return 0; // Match
  }
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(test(10, 5));
    System.out.println(test(5, 10));
    System.out.println(test(5, 5));
    monitor.expect(new String[] {
      "1",
      "-1",
      "0"
    });
  }
} ///:~

There’s no need for else, because the method will not continue after executing a return.

Thinking in Java
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