April 30, 2003
Why chaining calls is bad

(or learn from my screw-ups)
Refactoring code is somewhat of a hobby, I suppose, since I do it as much as I possibly can (or have time for).. so seeing something like this..


String result = (someString.trim() + anotherString.trim()).toLowerCase();

Boils my blood and of course I have to rewrite it..


String result = "";
if(someString != null)
   result += someString.trim();
if(anotherString != null)
   result += anotherString.trim().toLowerCase();

.. and of course I completly missed the part where the entire string was set to lower case.. not just the second portion.

Stupid me (this caused real problems too).. but I say at least 20% of the blame is on the hard-to-read chained code.. (20% more on me being in a hurry and rest on me for not paying attention, but who's counting..)

Posted April 30, 2003 08:48 PM in Java
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Comments
On May 1, 2003 04:51 PM x0r added:

(watch blood pressure)

Then youll have a field day here:

I made this today:
<%=java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance(java.text.DateFormat.MEDIUM, com.ibm.wps.engine.RunData.from(request).getLocale()).format(((java.util.GregorianCalendar) request.getSession().getAttribute(com.factoring.mfoportal.util.Constants.CLIENT_CUSTOMER_SEARCH_START_DATE)).getTime())%>

It wasnt supposed to be that long, but it works, so why take it apart now. ;)

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On May 1, 2003 11:15 PM Hans added:

I don't envy the poor coder who has to maintain this...

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On May 2, 2003 01:20 AM Matt added:

xOr: Bad coder! No keyboard!

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On May 11, 2003 12:21 PM Daniel added:

Regarding your "String result" example, and depending what the result is meant to be, it could be better to have a single if(someString != null && anotherString != null) and do the whole string appending inside the if-block (using StringBuffers if you want).

This is assuming a null string is unexpected, in which case you could even add an else block throwing an exception when you get a null string.

Anyway, as far as chained calls is concerned, I many times find myself writing huge lines, because I'm probably in the zone. Then after compiling and testing, I go back and break the big lines up into readable code, normally using the print margin line as a guide.

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