Java: best type to store grid references

Question

I am creating an object in Java. One of its attributes is a grid reference - ints x, y & z.

Rather than creating a variable for each, is there a better way to store these?

Answer 1

Create a record-like class, GridReference:

public class GridReference {

    public int x;

    public int y;

    public int z;

}

You could instantiate it as:

GridReference gridReference = GridReference();

And assign the individual values via:

gridReference.x = 1;
gridReference.y = 0;
gridReference.z = 0;

Accessible via:

gridReference.x;
gridReference.y;
gridReference.z;

You could flesh the class-out to a more secure object as:

public class GridReference {

    private final int _x;

    private final int _y;

    private final int _z;

    public GridReference(int x, int y, int z) {
        _x = x;
        _y = y;
        _z = z;
    }

    public getX() {
        return _x;
    }

    public getY() {
        return _y;
    }

    public getZ() {
        return _z;
    }

}

And instantiate it as:

GridReference gridReference = new GridReference(1, 0, 0);

Assigning the values at the same time. These would be accessed via:

gridReference.getX();
gridReference.getY();
gridReference.getZ();

(To change the values, you'd need to reassign the reference to a new GridReference though.)

Answer 2

You can use an array for them

class MyClass { 
    private final int [] gridRef = new int[3];

    public MyClass( int x, int y, int z ) { 
        gridRef[0] = x;
        gridRef[1] = y;
        gridRef[2] = z;
    }
    public int getX() { 
        return gridRef[0];
    }
    public int getY() { 
        return gridRef[1];
    }
    public int getZ() { 
        return gridRef[2];
    }
}

That would be a read only access to the grid reference.

I'm not sure if that is "better" though. What do you want to achieve?