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For example, I want to create a function that can return any number (negative, zero, or positive). However, based on certain exceptions, I'd like the function to return Boolean FALSE Is there a way to write a function that can return an int or a Boolean ? Ok, so this has received a lot of responses. I understand I'm simply approaching the problem incorrectly and I should throw some sort of Exception in the method. To get a better answer, I'm going to provide some example code. Please don't make fun :) public class Quad { public static void main (String[] args) { double a, b, c; a=1; b=-7; c=12; System.out.println("x = " + quadratic(a, b, c, 1)); // x = 4.0 System.out.println("x = " + quadratic(a, b, c, -1)); // x = 3.0 // "invalid" coefficients. Let's throw an exception here. How do we handle the exception? a=4; b=4; c=16; System.out.println("x = " + quadratic(a, b, c, 1)); // x = NaN System.out.println("x = " + quadratic(a, b, c, -1)); // x = NaN } public static double quadratic(double a, double b, double c, int polarity) { double x = b*b - 4*a*c; // When x < 0, Math.sqrt(x) retruns NaN if (x < 0) { /* throw exception! I understand this code can be adjusted to accommodate imaginary numbers, but for the sake of this example, let's just have this function throw an exception and say the coefficients are invalid */ } return (-b + Math.sqrt(x) * polarity) / (2*a); } }

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