RE: HTML to XML, vice versa

["Fred Kulack" <kulack@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ah... You are about to see the light. That method's code is hard to think
about
because its only a method definition, NOT any code.

Yank all the stuff you had in your FieldFormatter class OUT,
and change FieldFormatter to an "interface".
Create XMLFieldFormatter and HTMLFieldFormatter that 'implements'
FieldFormatter.
Put the code that was in FieldFormatter into the appropriate
*FieldFormatter
object and create the other one with new code.
i.e.
the toML() method in FieldFormatter. Only looks like a function prototype,
it contains no code, and is only used to call the derived class.

Suddenly, polymorphism!
User code:
Field     obj = new Field();
obj.setFormatter(new XMLFieldFormatter());
OR
obj.setFormatter(new HTMLFieldFormatter());
String theString = obj.toML();

public interface FieldFormatter {
   public String toML(); /* note, no code in an interface */
}

public class HTMLFieldFormatter implements FieldFormatter {
  public String toML() {
     return "<p>" + blah + </p>;
  }
}

public class XMLFieldFormatter implements FieldFormatter {
  public String toML() {
     return "<xml>" + blah + "</xml>";
  }
}

public class Field {
  protected FieldFormatter formatter = null;  (not sure if this is correct)
  ...
  public void setFormatter(FieldFormatter fieldFormatter) {
    formatter = fieldFormatter;
  }
  public String toML() {
    return formatter.toML();
  }
}



"The stuff we call "software" is not like anything that human society
  is used to thinking about. Software is something like a machine, and
  something like mathematics, and something like language, and
  something like thought, and art, and information...
  but software is not in fact any of those other things."
Bruce Sterling - The Hacker Crackdown

Fred A. Kulack  -  AS/400e  Java and Java DB2 access, Jdbc, JTA, etc...
IBM in Rochester, MN  (Phone: 507.253.5982   T/L 553-5982)
mailto:kulack@us.ibm.com   Personal: mailto:kulack@bresnanlink.net
AOL Instant Messenger: Home:FKulack  Work:FKulackWrk

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