Thread: Adding convenience methods to an application class

I'm just starting out to learn Java programming, starting with this basic piece of code:

  public class MyApplication
   {public static void main(String[] args)
     {MainFrame frame = new MainFrame();
 
      if (args.length > 0)
/*      Need to parse the argument list intelligently, not */
/*      just assume that only fileNames are present.       */
        for (int A = 0; A < args.length; A++)
          frame.addDocument(new File(args[A]));
 
      else
        frame.insertNewDocument();
 
      frame.setVisible(true);
     }
   }

As the comment says, I need to parse the command line text. Since there are only a handful of options to detect, using something like the Apache parser is rather like killing flies with a sledgehammer. :-) Looking at the various String methods, i see some deficiencies from what I have found useful, so I'd like to create some convenience methods to avoid making my mainline code too complicated.
The String class apparently cannot be extended or subclassed, but it occurred to me that methods owned by class MyApplication can perfectly well perform string manipulations; the only question is what attributes such methods need to have. These methods should be accessible globally, so I think that something along the lines of

public static <returnType> convenienceMethod(String string1, String string2, int limit, bool respectCase) {...}

where <returnType> might be String, int or bool and the number and type of arguments would vary depending on the method's purpose. Might these be the right sort of attributes for such methods?

Need to parse the argument list intelligently,

If the method needs to handle the args being passed to any class, how can it know that what the class expects?
For example one class expects a filename and another class expects a list of user names.

Please edit your post and wrap your code with code tags:

[code]
**YOUR CODE GOES HERE**
[/code]

to get highlighting and preserve formatting.

"any class"? I'm not sure that I understand your question. The methods will be used for processing Strings. E.g.

public static int words(String phrase) {...}

or

public static String word(String phrase, int wordNum) {...}

By any class I meant the the class that was called by the java command on the command line:
java AnyClass <the args here>
The code in the main method of AnyClass would handle the Strings passed as <the args here>.
What would the called method do with the String(s) passed to it?
What would the called method return?

Ok, what problems are you having with the design of this method?
What exactly is the method supposed to do? What does it return?
Will the class that is using the method pass anything to the method that it can use to parse and evaluate the passed args?

Originally Posted by Norm

Ok, what problems are you having with the design of this method?

My primary concern is how to select the appropriate scope for the method; it should be usable anywhere in the application.

What exactly is the method supposed to do? What does it return?
Will the class that is using the method pass anything to the method that it can use to parse and evaluate the passed args?

Its signatures are

bool abbrev(String fullWord, int minLength, bool ignoreCase)
bool abbrev(String fullWord, int minLength) /* respectCase is the default */

so e.g.

String     keyWord = "-Vers";
String fullVersion = "-version";
String fullVerbose = "-verbose";
 
if (keyWord.abbrev(fullVersion,4,true))
  System.out.println(keyWord+" is an abbreviation of "+fullVersion+".");
 
if (keyWord.abbrev(fullVersion,4,false))
  System.out.println(keyWord+" is not an abbreviation of "+fullVersion+".");
 
if (keyWord.abbrev(fullVerbose,4,true))
  System.out.println(keyWord+" is not an abbreviation of "+fullVerbose+".");

etc.

usable anywhere in the application.

One way would be to make the method static. That would make it usable from anywhere.
Being static would mean that the method does not need to save any values.

Strange. Most of your posted code uses static.

I don't know how to mark a thread as solved.