In order to save Bob some breath,
It's been discussed extensively with the conclusion that jdk 7 will address
most of it.
Hi all,
There are some places in the Click API where, IMHO, users would
benefit from the possibility of using method chaining. Briefly, this
involves returning "this" from a method so that you can call another
method on the same object.
Here is an example with the Column class:
Table table = new Table("table");
table.addColumn(new Column("id"));
table.addColumn(new Column("name"));
Column age = new Column("age");
age.setTextAlign("right");
table.addColumn(age);
Notice that for the third column, we want to use a different text
alignment. We have to break the flow and create a separate Column
object. We also have to make up a name for the variable, and we end up
needing 3 lines of code instead of 1.
With a "Column textAlign(String align)" method that calls
"setTextAlign(align)" and returns "this", we could write:
Table table = new Table("table");
table.addColumn(new Column("id"));
table.addColumn(new Column("name"));
table.addColumn(new Column("age").textAlign("right"));
I find this easier to write and easier to read. No need to break the
flow. What do you think?
Note that it is important *not* to change the original setter methods.
These must remain of the form "public void setXyz(value)" to respect
the JavaBean specification. The convention I've seen most often is to
name the method-chaining versions of the setter methods simply by
removing the "set" prefix.
Of course, people who prefer using the setter methods can continue
doing so. Since the method-chaining versions just call the
corresponding setter method and return "this", backward-compatibility
is preserved.
If you like this idea of adding method-chaining versions of setter
methods, of course there are likely other places in the Click API
that could benefit.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Freddy
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