How to solve this by returning the result of an expression, rather than an if statement

Question

Hello all,
Trying to solve this without using an if statement, as prompted by the challenge - I'm a bit stumped, and have tried a few things... not sure what I'm missing here!
Some advice would be much appreciated,
Many Thanks
Henry
```ScrabblePlayer.java
public class ScrabblePlayer {
  // A String representing all of the tiles that this player has
  private String tiles;
  public ScrabblePlayer() {
    tiles = "";
  }
  public String getTiles() {
    return tiles;
  }
  public void addTile(char tile) {
    tiles += tile; 
  }
  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
      boolean isIN = tiles.indexOf(tile) != -1;
    if (isIN) {
        return true;
  } else {
      return false;
  }
  }
}
```

Jennifer Nordell · Accepted Answer

Hi there, @Henry Brenton (https://teamtreehouse.com/henrybrenton) ! Looks to me like you're doing great! Lots of students get stuck on this so you're not alone. When programming you can return the result of an evaluation directly. Ideally, you never want to see a setup where if this is true return true, otherwise, return false.
Here's an example. Let's say we're going to return true if x is greater than 100 and false if it's 100 or less:
```java
if(x > 100) {
   return true;
} else {
  return false;
}
```
There is nothing wrong with the above code and will do what is expected. But it's a rather verbose way to go about it. Let's try returning the result of the evaluation directly:
```java
return x > 100;
```
There you have it. Nice and short, right?  The evaluation x > 100 will run and return a boolean from the evaluation which we then immediately return.
Hope this helps! :sparkles:

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Henry Brenton

Henry Brenton

How to solve this by returning the result of an expression, rather than an if statement

1 Answer

Jennifer Nordell

Jennifer Nordell

Henry Brenton

Henry Brenton