Re: values for fields in failure/exception

From:
Jean-Baptiste Nizet <jnizet@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:50:20 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<6d5e0ef4-c4ec-4880-b518-84afe6b04fa8@k22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
On 9 d=E9c, 18:28, mark jason <markjaso...@gmail.com> wrote:

hi,
In my program I need to return a result object as below

class MyResult {
    private boolean success;
    private double distance;
    private String matchFileName;
    private String message;

    public MyResult (boolean s, double d, String mfn, String msg) {
        this.success = s;
        this.distance = d;
        this.matchFileName = mfn;
        this.message = msg;
    }
    //getters and setters...

}

In my program , I am returning a MyResult instance containing values
from a calculation.If an exception occurs ,I would like to return the
object with values which represent a failed calculation .The problem
is that,I cannot put distance as 0.0 since it is one of the valid
distance values.
So I put distance as Double.NaN.I don't know if this is the correct
way..Can someone suggest a better solution?


Every public class and public method defines a contract, that clients
must respect. If you define the contract clearly, by documenting it,
clients just have to obey the contract and everything will be fine.
Here's an exemple of such a contract.

/**
 * The result of the computation, which can be successful or not. The
result
 * contains a distance, a message and the file name of the match. The
distance
 * only makes sense in the case of a successful result.
 */
public class MyResult {
    private boolean success;
    private double distance;
    private String matchFileName;
    private String message;

    public MyResult (boolean s, double d, String mfn, String msg) {
        this.success = s;
        this.distance = d;
        this.matchFileName = mfn;
        this.message = msg;
    }

    /**
     * Gets the distance from the result. Note that the returned
distance is
     * undetermined if the result is not successful.
     * @see #isSuccess() to know if the result is successful and if
calling this method
     * makes sense
     */
    public double getDistance() {
        return this.distance;
    }

    /**
     * Determines is the result is successful or not. Clients should
call this method
     * and ensure the result is successful before getting the distance
from the result.
     * @return <code>true</code> if the result is successful,
<code>false</code>otherwise.
     */
    public boolean isSuccess() {
        return this.success;
    }

    // ...
}

JB.

public MyResult getResult() {
    MyResult res = null;
    try{
        res = calculate();

    }catch(SomeException e) {
        return new MyResult ( false, Double.NaN, "", e.getMessage=

() );

    }
    return res;

}

regards,
mark

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