Java value of if statements

Question

In Java can I return a boolean value with the following:

public boolean areBothEven(int i, int j) {
    return (i%2 == 0 && j%2 == 0);
}

Or do I need to surround the statement with an if and then return true and false appropriately?

Answer 1

The expression is of boolean type, and is therefore suitable to be returned. You do not need to use an if statement.

Answer 2

No, in fact doing stuff like return xxx ? true : false; or if (xxx) return true; else return false; is generally considered redundant and therefore bad style. In your case, you might even speed things up slightly by avoiding the && (which may incur a branch mis-prediction):

return (i | j)%2 == 0;