Question

I am using a switch statement with 13 cases, each case only has an one line return value.

McCabe paints this in red. Is there an easier way to write a big switch statement? It doesn’t seem complex to read, but I don’t like the default setting turning red. If other people use the same tool on my code and see red stuff they might think I’m stupid 🙂

Edit: I’m mapping different SQL-Types to my own more abstract types, therefore reducing the total amount of types.

case Types.TIME:
    return AbstractDataType.TIME;
case Types.TIMESTAMP:
    return AbstractDataType.TIME;
case Types.DATE:
    return AbstractDataType.TIME;
case Types.BIGINT:
    return AbstractDataType.NUMERIC;
case Types.DECIMAL:
    return AbstractDataType.NUMERIC;

and so on…

Answer 1

I don’t know that much about McCabe tools. One of the things Cyclomatic complexity considers is multiple exit points.

I like the EnumMap idea.

If a switch is going to be used, you could have a result variable and do away with all the return statements. You can also collapse all the source values that have the same result type:

result = null;

case Types.TIME:
case Types.DATE:
case Types.TIMESTAMP: result = AbstractDataType.TIME

// etc.

return result;

I think this reduces the cyclomatic complexity, regardless of what anyone thinks about it as style. And it is a different way to write the statement, though whether it is easier you should judge.