In my opinion, there is no Pair in Java because, if you want to add extra functionality directly on the pair (e.g. Comparable), you must bound the types. In C++, we just don't care, and if types composing a pair do not have operator <
, the pair::operator <
will not compile as well.
An example of Comparable with no bounding:
public class Pair<F, S> implements Comparable<Pair<? extends F, ? extends S>> {
public final F first;
public final S second;
/* ... */
public int compareTo(Pair<? extends F, ? extends S> that) {
int cf = compare(first, that.first);
return cf == 0 ? compare(second, that.second) : cf;
}
//Why null is decided to be less than everything?
private static int compare(Object l, Object r) {
if (l == null) {
return r == null ? 0 : -1;
} else {
return r == null ? 1 : ((Comparable) (l)).compareTo(r);
}
}
}
/* ... */
Pair<Thread, HashMap<String, Integer>> a = /* ... */;
Pair<Thread, HashMap<String, Integer>> b = /* ... */;
//Runtime error here instead of compile error!
System.out.println(a.compareTo(b));
An example of Comparable with compile-time check for whether type arguments are comparable:
public class Pair<
F extends Comparable<? super F>,
S extends Comparable<? super S>
> implements Comparable<Pair<? extends F, ? extends S>> {
public final F first;
public final S second;
/* ... */
public int compareTo(Pair<? extends F, ? extends S> that) {
int cf = compare(first, that.first);
return cf == 0 ? compare(second, that.second) : cf;
}
//Why null is decided to be less than everything?
private static <
T extends Comparable<? super T>
> int compare(T l, T r) {
if (l == null) {
return r == null ? 0 : -1;
} else {
return r == null ? 1 : l.compareTo(r);
}
}
}
/* ... */
//Will not compile because Thread is not Comparable<? super Thread>
Pair<Thread, HashMap<String, Integer>> a = /* ... */;
Pair<Thread, HashMap<String, Integer>> b = /* ... */;
System.out.println(a.compareTo(b));
This is good, but this time you may not use non-comparable types as type arguments in Pair.
One may use lots of Comparators for Pair in some utility class, but C++ people may not get it. Another way is to write lots of classes in a type hierarchy with different bounds on type arguments, but there are too many possible bounds and their combinations...