Code Musing – Roman Kagan

“I am sorry I have had to write you such a long letter, but I did not have time to write you a short one”
Pascal, Blaise (1623 – 1662) – French philosopher and mathematician.

At the age of 18 he invented the first calculating machine.

So I wonder why do we make the same mistake? Let’s review a few code examples.

Instead of following code:

private boolean isItemPutEligible(final SolrDocument doc) {
    String putEligibility = "N";
    Object obj = doc.getFieldValue(IS_PUT_ELIGIBLE);
    if (obj != null) {
        putEligibility = obj.toString();
    }
    if ("Y".equalsIgnoreCase(putEligibility)) {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

Could be shortened to:

private boolean isItemPutEligible(final SolrDocument doc) {
    Object obj = doc.getFieldValue(IS_PUT_ELIGIBLE);
    if (obj != null && obj.toString().toUpperCase().equals("Y")) {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

Instead of this code:

Object obj = doc.getFieldValue(PROD_ID);
if (obj != null) {
    if (obj instanceof ArrayList<?>) {
        ArrayList<?> al = (ArrayList<?>) obj;
        if (!al.isEmpty()) {
            Object o = al.get(0);
            if (o != null) {
                result = o.toString();
            }
        }
    } else {
        result = obj.toString();
    }
}

Could be shortened to:

Object obj = doc.getFirstValue(PROD_ID);
if (obj!=null)
    return obj.toString();
return null;

Both examples are much easier to read and understand I think.

In first instance we just avoid using unnecessary variable:

putEligibility

In second instance we used method that returns the very first value from List or Object found in document per field name or null:

getFirstValue

I think just reviewing such examples would inspire you to write less code and drink more of your favorite drink!!!

AUTHOR

Roman Kagan