Question

I know that this will not work, which sucks IMO, but I am wondering what is my best solution. After some searching I have found out about ORM and hibernate. After finding out about them I have found many people who say its more hassle than it is worth and promotes laziness. Please can anyone point me in a good direction?

//Setup the weapon classes
logger.info("Initializing the weapon classes.");
stat = conn.prepareStatement("SELECT *" + 
                            " FROM " + DB_NAME + ".weapons");
rs = stat.executeQuery();
while (rs.next()) {
    Weapon rs.getString("name") = new Weapon(rs.getint("weapon_id"), rs.getString("name"), rs.getString("description"), rs.getString("filename"), rs.getint("rarity"), rs.getint("sell_price"), rs.getint("quantity_max"), rs.getint("slot"), rs.getint("level_requirement"), rs.getint("strength_requirement"), rs.getint("dexterity_requirement"), rs.getint("intelligence_requirement"), rs.getint("enchanted_increase"), rs.getint("enchanted_cost"), rs.getint("hit_min"), rs.getint("hit_max"), rs.getint("speed"), rs.getint("elemental_type"), rs.getint("elemental_hit_min"), rs.getint("elemental_hit_max"));
}

I know this has been asked many times, but I am just finding so many contradictory opinions. 🙁

Answer 1

Using an ORM depends on your project size. Personally, and by looking at your understanding of Java, I would not recommend that you jump into hibernate and such for now. I would suggest that you play directly with SQL first so you have a better understanding of persistence.

As for the code you posted, here is what you could do :

//Setup the weapon classes
logger.info("Initializing the weapon classes.");
stat = conn.prepareStatement("SELECT *" + 
                            " FROM " + DB_NAME + ".weapons");

HashMap<String, Weapon> weapons = new HashMap<String, Weapon>();

rs = stat.executeQuery();
while (rs.next()) {
    Weapon weapon = new Weapon()
        .setId(rs.getint("weapon_id"))
        .setName(rs.getString("name"))
        .setDescription(rs.getString("description"))
        .setFilename(rs.getString("filename"))
        .setRarity(rs.getint("rarity"))
        .setSellPrice(rs.getint("sell_price"))
        .setQuantityMax(rs.getint("quantity_max"))
        .setSlot(rs.getint("slot"))
        .setLvlRequirement(rs.getint("level_requirement"))
        .setStrRequirement(rs.getint("strength_requirement"))
        .setDexRequirement(rs.getint("dexterity_requirement"))
        .setIntRequirement(rs.getint("intelligence_requirement"))
        .setEnchantedInc(rs.getint("enchanted_increase"))
        .setEnchantedCost(rs.getint("enchanted_cost"))
        .setHitMin(rs.getint("hit_min"))
        .setHitMax(rs.getint("hit_max"))
        .setSpeed(rs.getint("speed"))
        .setElementalType(rs.getint("elemental_type"))
        .setElementalHitMin(rs.getint("elemental_hit_min"))
        .setElementalHitMax(rs.getint("elemental_hit_max"));

    weapons.put(rs.getString("name"), weapon);
}

Avoid having a constructor (or even a method!) with so many arguments. Unless you are exporting your class to a third party or exposing it to some user plugins and don’t want anyone to change the internal values, don’t worry about setters! Then each set* methods return this so they can be chained. For example :

public Weapon setHitMax(int max) {
    this.hitMax = max;
    return this;
}

And you can, then access your weapons using the Map. Like, for example :

weapons.get("sword").getHitMax();