Question

I have to handle two classes with identical methods but they don’t implement the same interface, nor do they extend the same superclass. I’m not able / not allowed to change this classes and I don’t construct instances of this classes I only get objects of this.
What is the best way to avoid lots of code duplication?

One of the class:

package faa;

public class SomethingA {

    private String valueOne = null;
    private String valueTwo = null;

    public String getValueOne() { return valueOne; }
    public void setValueOne(String valueOne) { this.valueOne = valueOne; }

    public String getValueTwo() { return valueTwo; }
    public void setValueTwo(String valueTwo) { this.valueTwo = valueTwo; }
}

And the other…

package foo;

public class SomethingB {

    private String valueOne;
    private String valueTwo;

    public String getValueOne() { return valueOne; }
    public void setValueOne(String valueOne) { this.valueOne = valueOne; }

    public String getValueTwo() { return valueTwo; }
    public void setValueTwo(String valueTwo) { this.valueTwo = valueTwo; }
}

(In reality these classes are larger)

My only idea is now to create a wrapper class in this was:

public class SomethingWrapper {

    private SomethingA someA;
    private SomethingB someB;

    public SomethingWrapper(SomethingA someA) {
        //null check..
        this.someA = someA;
    }

    public SomethingWrapper(SomethingB someB) {
        //null check..
        this.someB = someB;
    }

    public String getValueOne() {
        if (this.someA != null) {
            return this.someA.getValueOne();
        } else {
            return this.someB.getValueOne();
        }
    }

    public void setValueOne(String valueOne) {
        if (this.someA != null) {
            this.someA.setValueOne(valueOne);
        } else {
            this.someB.setValueOne(valueOne);
        }
    }

    public String getValueTwo() {
        if (this.someA != null) {
            return this.someA.getValueTwo();
        } else {
            return this.someB.getValueTwo();
        }
    }

    public void setValueTwo(String valueTwo) {
        if (this.someA != null) {
            this.someA.setValueTwo(valueTwo);
        } else {
            this.someB.setValueTwo(valueTwo);
        }
    }
} 

But I’m not realy satisfied with this solution. Is there any better / more elegant way to solve this problem?

Answer 1

A better solution would be to create an interface to represent the unified interface to both classes, then to write two classes implementing the interface, one that wraps an A, and another that wraps a B:

public interface SomethingWrapper {
    public String getValueOne();
    public void setValueOne(String valueOne);
    public String getValueTwo();
    public void setValueTwo(String valueTwo);
};

public class SomethingAWrapper implements SomethingWrapper {

    private SomethingA someA;

    public SomethingWrapper(SomethingA someA) {
        this.someA = someA;
    }

    public String getValueOne() {
        return this.someA.getValueOne();
    }

    public void setValueOne(String valueOne) {
        this.someA.setValueOne(valueOne);
    }

    public String getValueTwo() {
        return this.someA.getValueTwo();
    }

    public void setValueTwo(String valueTwo) {
        this.someA.setValueTwo(valueTwo);
    }
};

and then another class just like it for SomethingBWrapper.