Command pattern vs reflection - java

I have controller that executes some commands according to command name, taken from url. The main point is in not to use if and switch clauses. As I know there are ONLY two ways how to do it - 1) command pattern 2) reflection.
//Command pattern
class Controller{
private HashMap<String,Command> commands;
public void executeCommand(String commandName){
commands.get(commandName).execute();
}
...
}
//reflection
class Controller{
public void readCommand(){
....
}
public void executeCommand(String commandName){
this.getClass().getMethod(commandName+"Command").invoke(this);
}
...
}
So the questios:
Which one is better?
Is it normal in one application to let developers use one of the methods they want.
Are there other ways?

first way is better, use reflections only when don't have other options.
in one application there should be one approach to solve one kind of problem.
I think the first approach is fine. (much better then if/else blocks)

Which one is better?
Obviously first one is better. Even though you have quoted that you are using Command pattern, it's not complete "Command" pattern. Command pattern will have Command (abstract), Concrete Command, Receiver, Invoker and Client.
Have a look at this question:
Using Command Design pattern
Apart from Command Patten, I would like to highlight pros and cons of reflection.
Pros:
Handling dependency injection
Developing plug and play frameworks
Cons:
Reflection calls are slower
You can violate security and explode application with bad intent ( e.g. setting private variables of a class, which is invisible to other class)
Have a look at related SE question regarding Reflection :
What is reflection and why is it useful?
Is it normal in one application to let developers use one of the methods they want.
It is normal for developers to chose best method to solve a particular problem.
Are there other ways?
It depends on type of problem you are going to address. Design patterns provides solutions to recurring problems.
All solution can't be fit in existing design patterns. You may have developed new patterns to solve your problem.

I think there are 2 different ways for your first approach. Each command could be a subclass of the abstract class Command. Or each command could be an instance of the class command. That depends on how flexible that is all supposed to be, and are the are parameters and return values for commands? With subclasses it would look like this (just to get the idea):
abstract public class Command {
abstract public void execute();
}
public class LsCommand extends Command
{
#Override
public void execute() {
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ls");
} catch (IOException e) {}
}
}
public class ChdirCommand extends Command
{
#Override
public void execute() {
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("chdir");
} catch (IOException e) {}
}
}
Here my answers:
Your first way is better. Always prefer design patterns over
reflection.
Sorry I don't understand question 2. But it doesn't have a question mark anyway, so I just skip it :)
You might want to look into the Strategy design pattern, where each command could even be made of different parts of sub commands.
Another idea would be the Factory design pattern. In that case you
would put each command into a class and then use the ClassLoader to
load the class by name.

It is not obviously one vs another. You can have both:
public class Controller {
public void executeCommand(String commandName){
CommandFactory.getCommand(commandName).execute();
}
}
public class CommandFactory {
private static final String COMMAND_PACKAGE = "come.example.command.";
private static Map<String, Command> commandMap = new HashMap<>();
public static Command getCommand (String commandName){
if (commandMap.containsKey(commandName)){
return commandMap.get(commandName);
}
String commandNameCapitalized = commandName.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase() + commandName.substring(1);
String commandClassString = COMMAND_PACKAGE + commandNameCapitalized;
try {
Class commandClass = Class.forName(commandClassString);
Command command = (Command) commandClass.newInstance();
commandMap.put(commandName, command);
return command;
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
}

Related

How to instantiate, configure and use a lib/framework in a oo-application?

I decided to split the last part of that question here into a new question here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/411738/extension-of-classes-where-to-put-behaviour-how-much-direct-access-is-allowe
If i have a lib and i want to use it, i wrote mostly a own class. This class has one method. In that there is the code how to instantiate the lib/framework. Sometimes there are a few more methods, with them i not only instantiate the class but use it. For example if i want to start a http-server i have there a start-method.
class Container
{
TheLib theLib;
public void init() //or a constructor
{
//some init of the theLib
}
public void start() //
{
theLib.doSomething(...)
theLib.doSomethingmore(...);
theLib.start(...);
}
//important!
public TheLib getTheLib()
{
return this.theLib; //after i started configured it and so on, i want of course use all methods,
which the lib have in some other parts in my application
}
}
But it seems not to be the best solution.
Are there any better solutions, that OO is?
Often i also use only one method, a own class for this seems to be here a big overhead?
Exposing the lib breaks encapsulation? Tell-Dont-Ask is also violated?
Everything depend on what you actually need or how you have access to your 'the lib' instance.
public class Container {
private TheLib theLib;
/* #1: Do you already created the instance before? */
public Container(TheLib theLib) {
this.theLib = theLib;
}
/* #2: Do you need to created the instance each time? */
public Container() {
this.theLib = new TheLib();
}
public void start() {
theLib.doSomething(...)
theLib.doSomethingmore(...);
theLib.start(...);
}
public TheLib getTheLib() {
return this.theLib;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
/* #1 */
TheLib theLib = ...;
Container container = new Container(theLib);
/* #2 */
Container container = new Container();
/* Continue the flow of your program */
container.start();
container.getTheLib().doSomethingEvenMore();
}
}
Or maybe you actually need only one instance of your 'Container' class. In this case, you should look on how to make a singleton: Java Singleton and Synchronization
Anwser: Often i also use only one method, a own class for this seems to be here a big overhead?
Well, in Java, you cannot do formal programming like in C, so everything line of code that you write, or will be using, has to be in a class of some sort.
If your piece of code is small and don't really need an object, static function might do the work.

Running JUnitCore with instances instead of classes

I'm looking to run JUnit 4.12+ programmatically, and a cursory search for doing so yielded (amongst many other similar posts) this answer, which prescribes the following basic solution:
#RunWith(Suite)
#Suite.SuiteClasses ({
MyTestClass1.class,
MyTestClass2.class
})
public class MyTestSuite {
}
Result testResults = JUnitCore.runClasses(MyTestSuite.class);
...and I was able to get this working, no sweat. So far so good!
Problem is: I have some pretty sophisticated test classes that need to be instantiated/injected with very specific properties at runtime...not something that can be done from inside a no-arg constructor. But the above method (specifying to just run any old instance of a set of classes) doesn't allow you to instantiate your test classes, configure them, and then run them.
Is there a way to do this? I couldn't find anything looking at the JUnit API. I am looking for something like:
MyTestClass1 mtc1 = new MyTestClass1(...);
MyTestClass2 mtc2 = new MyTestClass2(...);
Result testResults = JUnitCore.run(mtc1, mtc2);
You probably need custom runner to achieve that. Junit 4/5 comes with third party runner that can perform dependency Injection for Constructors and Methods. Few runner which are pretty popular are Mockito(MockitoJUnitRunner) and SpringJUnit4ClassRunner in case you are using Spring. You can check out custom runner and implementation details at:
https://github.com/junit-team/junit4/wiki/Custom-runners
I got this working with a custom Runner with sample (Groovy pseudo-code) as follows:
class MyRunner extends Runner {
#Override
Description getDescription() {
return null
}
#Override
void run(RunNotifier notifier) {
// LoginTests.class is a test class I want to run
LoginTests loginTests = new LoginTests(<my args here>)
Description description = Description.createSuiteDescription(LoginTests)
notifier.fireTestStarted(description)
try {
log.info("About to doSomething()...")
loginTests.doSomething()
log.info("Did it...")
notifier.fireTestFinished(description)
} catch(Throwable throwable) {
log.info("doSomething() failed...")
notifier.fireTestAssumptionFailed(new Failure(description, throwable))
}
}
}
Result testResults = new JUnitCore().run(Request.runner(new MyRunner()))

Java - Choosing the design pattern - 2 interfaces with same methods, except one has an extra parameter

So I have 2 interfaces (show below), 1 for regular/free kits and another one for purchasable kits. They both contain 2 methods, but in the "getIcon" method for purchasable kits, I need the player's profile as a parameter so I can check if they have bought the kit.
What is the best design pattern to use to link these 2 interfaces? and can you possibly show me the code to do it?
The 2 interfaces:
public interface Kits {
void giveKit(Player player);
Item getIcon();
}
public interface PurchasableKits {
void giveKit(Player player);
Item getIcon(Profile profile);
}
I attempted to use the adapter pattern but it doesn't seem right because the "getIcon" method is taking in a profile as a parameter but it doesn't get used.
public class KitAdapter implements PurchasableKits {
private Kits kits;
public KitAdapter(Kits kits) {
this.kits = kits;
}
#Override
public void givetKit(Player player){
kits.giveKit(player);
}
#Override
public void getIcon(Profile profile){
kits.getIcon();
}
}
Thanks in advance
You have 1 interface PurchasableKits. A free Kit would implement the interface and call getIcon(null).
The red flag is that the 2 interfaces are almost exactly the same. No design pattern will get you out of the situation that creates.
That's a tricky question because of the rules of the inheritance and cyclic inheritance avoided in java.
I don't believe that you need to interfaces, you could do something like this:
public interface Kits {
void giveKit(Player player);
//a vargars usage
Item getIcon(Profile... p);
}
public class ConcreteClass implements Kits{
#Override
public void giveKit(Player player) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}
#Override
public Item getIcon(Profile... o) {
//This is the ugly thing of this method. You must check the sent params.
//However I think it is better than send a null param, as the clean code suggest to avoid
if(o.length == 0)
System.out.println("without profile");
else
System.out.println("With profile");
return null;
}
}
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ConcreteClass my = new ConcreteClass();
my.getIcon();
my.getIcon(new Profile());
}
}
The output:
without profile
With profile
So I have 2 interfaces (show below), 1 for regular/free kits and another one for purchasable kits. They both contain 2 methods, but in the "getIcon" method for purchasable kits, I need the player's profile as a parameter so I can check if they have bought the kit.
Whether or not the profile is needed in the getIcon(...) method is an implementation detail of those Kits that are purchasable. I would just have a Kit interface that has the following definition:
public interface Kit {
void giveKit(Player player);
Item getIcon(Profile profile);
}
So every time you wanted to get the icon you would pass in the Profile and it would be up to the kits that are purchasable to look at the profile. The free ones would just ignore the argument. That you sometimes pass in null and sometimes not means that you know beforehand whether or not it is free which means that something is wrong with your model.
Couple of other comments about your code. Just my opinions:
Concrete classes tend to be nouns. Interfaces tend to be verbs. Maybe KitHandler instead of Kit?
Class names tend to be singular so then you can put them in a list. Maybe Kit (or KitHandler) would be better so you can create a List<Kit> kits = ....
I used get methods to return fields which means that they typically don't take arguments. Maybe getIcon should be generateIcon(...)?

I'm new to java from a javascript background: how do they manage event listeners properly and not tighting classes together?

I've been trying to do some "simple thing" in java that in javascript would look like:
// Main class
var model = new Model();
this.callback = function(e){/* do something */}
model.addListener("change", callback);
Well in java what I found so far is making the Main class deriving from java.util.Observer and Model from java.util.Observable; Then when the model will dispatch the event it will call the update method on the Main class. I found really ugly and not elegant at all. I can't even think of how I could work with this;
Is there any cleaner and flexible ways, maybe some libs to help me out here, because I have not found any acceptable tutorial about how to do it like this?
thanks a lot
Well what I've managed so far, and I quite I like it a lot more than creating "empty" classes just for simple events (but still not good, at least for me):
private ArrayList __items;
public void addListener(Method method, Object object){
this.__listeners.add(new Object[] {method, object});
}
public void dispatch(){
int i = this.__listeners.size();
Method method;
Object context;
while(i>0){
i--;
method = (Method)(this.__listeners.get(i))[0];
context = (Object)(this.__listeners.get(i))[1];
try{
method.invoke(context);
}catch(java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException e){
}catch(java.lang.IllegalAccessException e){
}
}
}
Then I use like this:
Gifts gifts = prendastotty.PrendasTotty.getMain().getLoggedUserGifts();
Class[] parameterTypes = new Class[0];
try{
Method m = Home.class.getMethod("__updateTable", parameterTypes);
gifts.addListener(m, this);
}catch(NoSuchMethodException e){
}
It this leaky/anti-pattern/buggy?
I must say that I had a bit of trouble keeping up with your code because in my head some of the stuff didn't make sense (from a Java way of thinking, or at least my Java way of thinking). So I hope I understood you correctly and can help you out.
Let's first take your simple example:
var model = new Model();
this.callback = function(e){/* do something */}
model.addListener("change", callback);
In Java a good approach,for example, would be:
public interface ModelListener {
public void execute(Model context);
}
public class Model {
private List<ModelListener> listeners;
public Model() {
this.listeners = new ArrayList<ModelListener>();
}
public void addListener(ModelListener listener) {
this.listeners.add(listener);
}
public void dispatch() {
for (ModelListener listener: listeners) {
listener.execute(this);
}
}
}
With this sort of design you can now do one of two things:
Use anonymous classes
In Java the most common case is that all your classes have a name, although there are cases when you can create anonymous classes, these are basically classes that
are implemented inline. Since they are implemented inline, they're usually only
used when they're small and it's known they won't be re-usable.
Example:
Model model = new Model();
model.add(new ModelListener() {
public void execute(Model model) { /* do something here */ }
});
Notice how the new ModelListener object is created (which is an interface) and the execute implementation is provided inline. That is the anonymous class.
Interface Implementations
You can create classes that implement your interface and use them instead of anonymous classes. This approach is often use when you want your listeners to be re-usable, have names that give semantic meaning to the code and/or they're logic isn't just a few lines of code.
Example:
public class LogListener implements ModelListener {
public void execute(Model model) {
// Do my logging here
}
}
Model model = new Model();
model.addListener(new LogListener());
Side note
As a side note, I saw that the method you were trying to bind as a listener was called __updateTable are you by any chance trying to detect object's changes so you can commit them to the database? If so I strongly suggest you to look at some ORM frameworks such as Hibernate or JPA they'll keep all that hassle from you, keeping track of changes and committing them to the database.
Hope it helps, regards from a fellow portuguese StackOverflow user ;)
You will find it a bit difficult to try to directly map javascript ideology into java. Their underlying philosophies are different. Without more definite code and expectations it is difficult to give you a clearer answer. Here is a sample of code in GWT(written in java) that attaches a click handler to a button.
Hope this helps you get started.
myButton.addSelectionListener(new SelectionListener<ComponentEvent>(){
#Override
public void componentSelected(ComponentEvent ce) {
// do your processing here
}
});
In Java, a function can't exist outside of a class as it can in Javascript. So when you need to provide a function implementation at runtime, you have to wrap that function inside a class and pass an instance of the class, unfortunately.
The solution you have using reflection will work (I assume), but it is not the preferred way to do it in Java since what used to be compile-time errors will now be runtime errors.

How to make a link betweeen the name a function and the actual function in java

I am building a user interface in netBeans (coding by hand, more flexible) with multiple toolbars.
What I am trying to do is create an actionListener for each button. I am retrieving names of the functions from XML and parse them to string. I will write implementations for those functions in a separate class, but my problem is the following:
How do I make the link between the function name and the string containing it's name?
Example: String is Open(), function will be Open(someParameter) and in the definitions class there will be static void Open(param).
First of all, consider my comment about your idea of dynamic button behavior resolved from strings being a wrong approach. However if you still need exactly what you asked, what you need is Reflection API.
Here's an example:
Class c = SomeClassWithMethods.class;
Method m = c.getMethod("someMethodName", String.class, Integer.class, Integer.TYPE);
m.invoke(baseObjectFromWhichToCallTheMethod, "stringParam", 10, 5);
Added:
Another option, which is a little bit prettier than reflection, but still a messy design, would be to use a map to link those Strings to methods. The code is a bit longer, but from the Java perspective it is much better than using reflection for your task (unless you have some specific requirement of which I'm not aware). This is how it would work:
//Interface whose instances will bind strings to methods
interface ButtonClickHandler {
void onClick();
}
class SomeClassYouNeed {
//One of the methods that will be bound to "onButtonOneClick()"
public void onButtonOneClick() {
log.info("ButtonOneClick method is called");
}
public void onButtonTwoClick() {
log.info("ButtonTwoClick method is called");
}
//Map that will hold your links
private static Map<String, ButtonClickHandler> buttonActionMap;
//Static constructor to initialize the map
static {
buttonActionMap = new Map<String, ButtonClickHandler>();
buttonActionMap.put("onButtonOneClick()",new ButtonClickHandler() {
#Override
public void onClick() {
onButtonOneClick();
}
});
buttonActionMap.put("onButtonTwoClick()",new ButtonClickHandler() {
#Override
public void onClick() {
onButtonTwoClick();
}
});
}
public void callByName(String methodName) {
final ButtonClickHandler handler = buttonActionMap.get(methodName);
if (handler == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("No handler found by name: "+methodName);
}
handler.onClick();
}
}
After you call callByName("onButtonTwoClick()") it will fetch the respective instance of ButtonClickHandler which will use the static method onButtonTwoClick() to process the click of the button.
It seems to me that you are looking for the equivalent of JS "eval" function in Java. This might help. Nevertheless it is generally not a good idea as #Max stated, you might want to rethink your design.
If i have understood your question correctly you are trying to generate your code files based on some strings taken from a XML file. I can suggest you this library to generate your codes.
For tutorials you can visit this link.
You may even use the Java Reflection API. Here is a link for the tutorial.
Its upto you, that which of the above two you use.

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