Question

Sorry for the bad question title.

Let’s say that I have DateRange class that basically just consists of a start date and and end date.

My question is: How might I represent computed date ranges such as ‘This Week’, ‘The Past Two Weeks’, ‘Last Month’, and ‘This Quarter’, such that multiple clients can use these computed date ranges in a consistent way? That is, I’m going to have multiple objects of multiple classes that all need to know what ‘This Week’ is.

I could build them into DateRange, but that doesn’t seem like a good solution because more might be added or some may become obsolete over time….in fact this will happen most certainly. I could make DateRange abstract and extend it, but then I’m going to have a bunch of tiny classes. I could create some kind of static helper class that computes these dates. How might you approach this problem?

dateRange = new DateRange(RangeEnum.THISWEEK));

or

dateRange = new ThisWeek();

or

dateRange = DateHelper.getThisWeek();

or

?

To throw an additional wrench into this thing, let’s say that I also need to represent a range like ‘the work week containing the date May 1, 2008’. Upon stating that, I’m leaning towards the helper class…it just feels awkward having a big lump of goofy methods.

Answer 1

I would go the way with the helper class.

DateRange dr = Helper.getThisWeek(); 

You’re right, you’ll get a bunch a methods, but if you would subclass something you’ll get a bunch of classes. This way you know for sure where to look.