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Cover image for Code Smell 133 - Hardcoded IF Conditions
Maxi Contieri
Maxi Contieri

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at maximilianocontieri.com

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Code Smell 133 - Hardcoded IF Conditions

Hard coding is fine. For a short period of time

TL;DR: Don't leave a hardcoded mess on IFs.

Problems

  • Testability

  • Hardcoded values

  • Open/Closed Principle Violation

Solutions

  1. Replace all IFs with a dynamic condition or polymorphism.

Context

Hard-coding iF conditions is great when doing Test-Driven Development.

We need to clean up stuff.

Sample Code

Wrong

private string FindCountryName (string internetCode)
{
  if (internetCode == "de")
    return "Germany";
  else if(internetCode == "fr") 
    return "France";
  else if(internetCode == "ar")
    return "Argentina";
    //lots of elses
  else
    return "Suffix not Valid";
}
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Right

private string[] country_names = {"Germany", "France", "Argentina"} //lots more
private string[] Internet_code_suffixes= {"de", "fr", "ar" } //more

private Dictionary<string, string> Internet_codes = new Dictionary<string, string>();

//There are more efficient ways for collection iteration
//This pseudocode is for illustration
int currentIndex = 0; 
foreach (var suffix in Internet_code_suffixes) {
  Internet_codes.Add(suffix, Internet_codes[currentIndex]);
  currentIndex++;
}

private string FindCountryName(string internetCode) {
  return Internet_codes[internetCode];
}
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Detection

[X] Automatic

By checking If/else conditions we can detect hard-coded conditions.

Tags

  • IFs

Conclusion

In the past, hard-coding was not an option.

With modern methodologies, we learn by hard-coding, and then, we generalize and refactor our solutions.

Relations

More Info

Credits

Photo by Jessica Johnston on Unsplash


Don't be (too) clever. My point was to discourage overly clever code because "clever code" is hard to write, easy to get wrong, harder to maintain, and often no faster than simpler alternatives because it can be hard to optimize.

Bjarne Stroustrup


This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.

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