How to avoid repetition when working with primitive types?

Posted by I82Much on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by I82Much
Published on 2010-03-19T19:57:34Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 20:01 UTC
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I have the need to perform algorithms on various primitive types; the algorithm is essentially the same with the exception of which type the variables are. So for instance,

/**
* Determine if <code>value</code> is the bitwise OR of elements of <code>validValues</code> array. 
* For instance, our valid choices are 0001, 0010, and 1000.
* We are given a value of 1001.  This is valid because it can be made from
* ORing together 0001 and 1000.
* On the other hand, if we are given a value of 1111, this is invalid because
* you cannot turn on the second bit from left by ORing together those 3
* valid values.
*/
public static boolean isValid(long value, long[] validValues) {
    for (long validOption : validValues) {
        value &= ~validOption;
    }
    return value != 0;
}

public static boolean isValid(int value, int[] validValues) {
    for (int validOption : validValues) {
        value &= ~validOption;
    }
    return value != 0;
}

How can I avoid this repetition? I know there's no way to genericize primitive arrays, so my hands seem tied. I have instances of primitive arrays and not boxed arrays of say Number objects, so I do not want to go that route either.

I know there are a lot of questions about primitives with respect to arrays, autoboxing, etc., but I haven't seen it formulated in quite this way, and I haven't seen a decisive answer on how to interact with these arrays.

I suppose I could do something like:

public static<E extends Number> boolean isValid(E value, List<E> numbers) {
    long theValue = value.longValue();
    for (Number validOption : numbers) {
        theValue &= ~validOption.longValue();
    }
    return theValue != 0;
}

and then

public static boolean isValid(long value, long[] validValues) {
    return isValid(value, Arrays.asList(ArrayUtils.toObject(validValues)));
}

public static boolean isValid(int value, int[] validValues) {
    return isValid(value, Arrays.asList(ArrayUtils.toObject(validValues)));
}

Is that really much better though? Any thoughts in this matter would be appreciated.

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