Question

I am working on a project in which I need to pass multiple arguments from the command line-

Below is the use case I have-

1. From the command line, I will be passing atleast four paramaters- noOfThreads, noOfTasks, startRange and tableName1, so if I am passing these four thing, then I need to store them in a variable and for any table names- I need to add it into the string list so that I can use them in my other code.

2. Secondly, I can pass five parameters instead of four just like above- So five parameters can be- noOfThreads, noOfTasks, startRange , tableName1 and tableName2. So here tableName2 is extra. so if I am passing these five thing, then I need to store them in a variable and here I am passing tableName1 and tableName2 as two tables so I will be storing these two tables in a string list.

3. Thirdly, I can pass six parameters instead of five just like above- So sixparameters can be- noOfThreads, noOfTasks, startRange , tableName1, tableName2 and tableName3. So here tableName3 is extra. so if I am passing these six thing, then I need to store them in a variable and here I am passing tableName1 , tableName2 and tableName3 as three tables so I will be storing these three tables in a string list again.

So for above scenario, I have the below code with me. It is looking very ugly currently as I have lot of repetition in my code as mentioned below. Is there any way I can make it more cleaner?

Below is my code-

private static List<String> databaseNames = new ArrayList<String>();
private static int noOfThreads;
private static int noOfTasks;
private static int startRange;
private static String tableName1;
private static String tableName2;
private static String tableName3;

public static void main(String[] args) {

if (args.length > 0 && args.length < 5) {

    noOfThreads = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
    noOfTasks = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
    startRange = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
    tableName1 = args[3];
    databaseNames.add(tableName1);
} else if (args.length > 0 && args.length < 6) {
    noOfThreads = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
    noOfTasks = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
    startRange = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
    tableName1 = args[3];
    tableName2 = args[4];
    databaseNames.add(tableName1);
    databaseNames.add(tableName2);
} else {
    noOfThreads = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
    noOfTasks = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
    startRange = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);
    tableName1 = args[3];
    tableName2 = args[4];
    tableName3 = args[5];
    databaseNames.add(tableName1);
    databaseNames.add(tableName2);
    databaseNames.add(tableName3);
}
}

Answer 1

You have a lot of redundancy, and when you see that think refactoring using methods to simplify. That’s is in effect just what I’d do. Also, consider having String[] field for your tableNames, String[] tableNames which will allow you to declare it as an array of whatever size is needed once you know your parameter count. For example:

public void fillParams(String[] args) {
    if (args.length < someMinimum) {
       // throw some exception
    }
    noOfThreads = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
    noOfTasks = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
    startRange = Integer.parseInt(args[2]);

    tableNames = new String[args.length - 3];
    for (int i = 0; i < tableNames.length; i++) {
       tableNames[i] = args[i + 3];
       databaseNames.add(tableNames[i]);
    }
}