When I have 2 classes and I want to use composition like that:
class A {
B beans
}
How can I set default values to B? And can I initialize it in A's constructor?
Depends on the language I suppose.
The general rule of the thumb is that the constructor needs to create the object and make sure it is in a valid state. So if in your case a valid state depends on whether or not the B class is initialised you can call the constructor of B. This will make sure that your class A whenever it is used is in a valid state and ready to use.
To get back on your question, yes you can assign a default value to B depending on the language.
Hope this helps.
Related
Yesterday I was asked a question in an interview:
Suppose class A is a base class, and class B is derived class.
Is it possible to create object of:
class B = new class A?
class A = new class B?
If yes, then what happen?
Objects of type B are guaranteed to also be objects of type A. This type of relationship is called "Is-a," or inheritance, and in OOP it's a standard way of getting polymorphism. For example, if objects of type A have a method foo(), objects of type B must also provide it, but its behavior is allowed to differ.
The reverse is not necessarily true: an object of type A (the base class) won't always be an object of type B (the derived class). Even if it is, this can't be guaranteed at compile-time, so what happens for your first line is that the code will fail to compile.
What the second line does depends on the language, but generally
Using a reference with the base type will restrict you to only accessing only members which the base type is guaranteed to have.
In Java, if member names are "hidden" (A.x exists and so does B.x, but they have different values), when you try to access the member you will get the value which corresponds to the type of the reference rather than the type of the object.
The code in your second example is standard practice when you are more interested in an API than its implementation, and want to make your code as generic as possible. For instance, often in Java one writes things like List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>(). If you decide to use a linked list implementation later, you will not have to change any code which uses list.
Take a look at this related question: What does Base b2 = new Child(); signify?
Normally, automatic conversions are allowed down the hierarchy, but not up. That is, you can automatically convert a derived class to its base class, but not the reverse. So only your second example is possible. class A = new class B should be ok since the derived class B can be converted to the base class A. But class B = new class A will not work automatically, but may be implemented by supplying an explicit conversion (overloading the constructor).
A is super class and B is a SubClass/Derived Class
the Statement
class A = new class B is always possible and it is called Upcasting because you are going Up in terms of more specific to more General
Example:
Fruit class is a Base Class and Apple Class is Derived
we can that Apple is more specific and must possess all the quality of an Fruit
so you can always do UPcasting where as
DownCasting is not always possible because Apple a=new Fruit();
A fruit can be a Apple or may it is not
I need to write some instance method, something like this (code in ruby):
def foo_bar(param)
foo(param)
if some_condition
do_bar(param)
else
do_baz(param)
end
end
Method foo_bar is a public api.
But I think, param variable here appears too many times. Maybe it would be better to create an private instance variable and use it in foo, do_bar and do_baz method? Like here: (#param is an instance variable in ruby, it can be initialized any time)
def foo_bar(param)
#param = param
foo
if some_condition
do_bar
else
do_baz
end
end
Which code is better? And why?
Is param replacing part of the state of the object?
If param is not changing the object state then it would be wrong to introduce non-obvious coupling between these methods as a convenience.
If param is altering the state of the object then it may still be bad practice to have a public api altering the state - much better to have a single private method responsible for checking and changing the state.
If param is directly setting the state of the object then I would change the instance variable here but only after checking that the new state is not inconsistent
The first version should be preferred for a couple of reasons. First, it makes testing much easier as each method is independent of other state. To test the do_bar method, simply create an instance of its containing class and invoke the method with various parameters. If you chose the second version of code, you'd have to make sure that the object had all the proper instance variables set before invoking the method. This tightly couples the test code with the object and results in broken test cases or, even worse, testcases that should no longer pass, but still do since they haven't been updated to match how the object now works.
The second reason to prefer the first version of code is that it is a more functional style and facilitates easier reuse. Say that another module or lambda function implements do_bar better than the current one. It won't have been coded to assume some parent class with a certain named instance variable. To be reusable, it will have expected any variables to be passed in as parameters.
The functional approach is the much better approach ... even in object oriented languages.
If you do not need param outside of the foo_bar method the first version is better. It is more obvious what information is being passed around and you are keeping it more thread friendly.
And I also agree with Mladen in the comment above: don't add something to the object state that doesn't belong there.
I'm often running into the same trail of thought when I'm creating private methods, which application is to modify (usually initialize) an existing variable in scope of the class.
I can't decide which of the following two methods I prefer.
Lets say we have a class Test with a field variable x. Let it be an integer. How do you usually modify / initialize x ?
a) Modifying the field directly
private void initX(){
// Do something to determine x. Here its very simple.
x = 60;
}
b) Using a return value
private int initX(){
// Do something to determine x. Here its very simple.
return 60;
}
And in the constructor:
public Test(){
// a)
initX();
// b)
x = initX();
}
I like that its clear in b) which variable we are dealing with. But on the other hand, a) seems sufficient most of the time - the function name implies perfectly well what we are doing!
Which one do you prefer and why?
Thank for your answers guys! I'll make this a community wiki as I realize that there is no correct answer to this.
I usually prefer b), only I pick a different name, like computeX() in this case. A few reasons for why:
if I declare computeX() as protected, there is a simple way for a subclass to influent how it works, yet x itself can remain a private field;
I like to declare fields final if that's what they are; in this case a) is not an option since initialization has to happen in compiler (this is Java-specific, but your examples all look Java as well).
That said, I don't have a strong preference between the two methods. For instance, if I need to initialize several related fields at once, I will usually pick option a). That, though, only if I cannot or don't want for some reason, to initialize directly in constructor.
For initialization I prefer constructor initialization if it's possible,
public Test():x(val){...}, or write initialization code in the constructor body. Constructor is the best place to initialize all the fields (actually, it is the purpose of constructor). I'd use private initX() approach only if initialization code for X is too long (just for readability) and call this function from constructor. private int initX() in my opinion has nothing to do with initialization(unless you implement lazy initialization,but in this case it should return &int or const &int) , it is an accessor.
I would prefer option b), because you can make it a const function in languages that support it.
With option a), there is a temptation for new, lazy or just time-stressed developers to start adding little extra tasks into the initX method, instead of creating a new one.
Also, in b), you can remove initX() from the class definition, so consumers of the object don't even have to know it's there. For example, in C++.
In the header:
class Test {
private: int X;
public: Test();
...
}
In the CPP file:
static int initX() { return 60; }
Test::Test() {
X = initX();
}
Removing the init functions from the header file simplifies the class for the people that have to use it.
Neither?
I prefer to initialize in the constructor and only extract out an initialization method if I need a lot of fields initialized and/or need the ability to re-initialize at another point in the life time of an instance (without going through a destruct/construct).
More importantly, what does 60 mean?
If it is a meaningful value, make it a const with a meaningful name: NUMBER_OF_XXXXX, MINUTES_PER_HOUR, FIVE_DOZEN_APPLES, SPEED_LIMIT, ... regardless of how and where you subsequently use it (constructor, init method or getter function).
Making it a named constant makes the value re-useable in and of itself. And using a const is much more "findable", especially for more ubiquitous values (like 1 or -1) then using the actual value.
Only when you want to tie this const value to a specific class would it make sense to me to create a class const or var, or - it the language does not support those - a getter class function.
Another reason to make it a (virtual) getter function would be if descendant classes need the ability to start with a different initial value.
Edit (in response to comments):
For initializations that involve complex calculations I would also extract out a method to do the calculation. The choice of making that method a procedure that directly modifies the field value (a) or a function that returns the value it should be given (b), would be driven by the question whether or not the calculation would be needed at other times than "just the constructor".
If only needed at initialization in the constructor, I would prefer method (a).
If the calculation needs to be done at other times as well, I would opt for method (b) as it also makes it possible to assign the outcome to some other field or local variable and so can be used by descendants or other users of the class without affecting the inner state of the instance.
Actually only a) method behaves as expected (by analyzing method name). Method b) should be named 'return60' in your example or 'getXValue' in some more complicated one.
Both options are correct in my opinion. It all depeneds what was your intention when certain design was choosen. If your method has to do initialization only I would prefer a) beacuse it is simplier. In case x value is also used for something else somewhere in logic using b) option might lead to more consistent code.
You should also always write method names clearly and make those names corresponding with actual logic. (in this case method b) has confusing name).
#Frederik, if you use option b) and you have a LOT of field variables, the constructor will become a quite unwieldy block of code. Sometimes you just can't help but have lots and lots of member variables in a class (example: it's a domain object and it's data comes straight from a very wide table in the database). The most pragmatic approach would be to modularize the code as you need to.
Is setX() method name appropriate for only for setting class property X?
For instance, I have a class where the output is a string of an html table. Before you can you can call getTable, you have to call setTable(), which just looks at a other properties and decides how to construct the table. It doesn't actually directly set any class property -- only causes the property to be set. When it's called, the class will construct strHtmlTable, but you can't specify it.
So, calling it setTable breaks the convention of get and set being interfaces for class properties.
Is there another naming convention for this kind of method?
Edit: in this particular class, there are at least two ( and in total 8 optional ) other methods that must be called before the class knows everything it needs to to construct the table. I chose to have the data set as separate methods rather than clutter up the __construct() with 8 optional parameters which I'll never remember the order of.
I would recommend something like generateTable() instead of setTable(). This provides a situation where the name of the method clearly denotes what it does.
I would probably still use a setTable() method to actually set the property, though. Ideally, you could open the possibility of setting a previously defined table for further flexibility.
Yes, setX() is primarily used for setting a field X, though setX() may have some additional code that needs to run in addition to a direct assignment to a field. Using it for something else may be misleading to other developers.
I would definitely recommend against having a public setTable() and would say that setTable() could be omitted or just an unused private method depending upon your requirements.
It sounds like the activity to generate the table is more of a view of other properties on the object, so you might consider moving that to a private method on the object like generateHtmlTable(). This could be done during construction (and upon updates to the object) so that any subsequent calls to getTable() will return the the appropriate HTML.
I have a group of classes (say for validation rules). Each one returns a true or false.
I use id and call a method signature for each one of the classes and get the results allowing me to dynamically create validation rules.
Worked great until...
I have a new class that takes an extra parameter to come up with its validation.
What is the best way to deal with this?
Modify every other classes method signature to take a parameter that they don't need?
Probably the most appropriate course of action is to abstract your parameter passing into an object that can have a variable profile of variables.
Of course, more simply, Objective-C does allow for a variable parameter list much like C:
void method(int a, ...) // in C
- (void) method:(id) firstObject, ... // in ObjC
Apple has Technical Q&A on the very subject.