lambda - Does Java SE 8 have Pairs or Tuples? - Stack Overflow
Having a Pair
class in Java SE was proposed and rejected at least once. See this discussion thread on one of the OpenJDK mailing lists. The tradeoffs are not obvious. On the one hand, there are many Pair implementations in other libraries and in application code. That demonstrates a need, and adding such a class to Java SE will increase reuse and sharing. On the other hand, having a Pair class adds to the temptation of creating complicated data structures out of Pairs and collections without creating the necessary types and abstractions. (That's a paraphrase of Kevin Bourillion's message from that thread.)
I recommend everybody read that entire email thread. It's remarkably insightful and has no flamage. It's quite convincing. When it started I thought, "Yeah, there should be a Pair class in Java SE" but by the time the thread reached its end I had changed my mind.
Note however that JavaFX has the javafx.util.Pair class. JavaFX's APIs evolved separately from the Java SE APIs.
As one can see from the linked question What is the equivalent of the C++ Pair in Java? there is quite a large design space surrounding what is apparently such a simple API. Should the objects be immutable? Should they be serializable? Should they be comparable? Should the class be final or not? Should the two elements be ordered? Should it be an interface or a class? Why stop at pairs? Why not triples, quads, or N-tuples?
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