I've had a lot of use of these snippets, looking for null values and empty strings.
I use the "argument test"-templates as the first code in my methods to check received arguments.
testNullArgument
if (${varName} == null) {
throw new NullPointerException(
"Illegal argument. The argument cannot be null: ${varName}");
}
You may want to change the exception message to fit your company's or project's standard. However, I do recommend having some message that includes the name of the offending argument. Otherwise the caller of your method will have to look in the code to understand what went wrong. (A NullPointerException with no message produces an exception with the fairly nonsensical message "null").
testNullOrEmptyStringArgument
if (${varName} == null) {
throw new NullPointerException(
"Illegal argument. The argument cannot be null: ${varName}");
}
${varName} = ${varName}.trim();
if (${varName}.isEmpty()) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"Illegal argument. The argument cannot be an empty string: ${varName}");
}
You can also reuse the null checking template from above and implement this snippet to only check for empty strings. You would then use those two templates to produce the above code.
The above template, however, has the problem that if the in argument is final you will have to amend the produced code some (the ${varName} = ${varName}.trim() will fail).
If you use a lot of final arguments and want to check for empty strings but doesn't have to trim them as part of your code, you could go with this instead:
if (${varName} == null) {
throw new NullPointerException(
"Illegal argument. The argument cannot be null: ${varName}");
}
if (${varName}.trim().isEmpty()) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"Illegal argument. The argument cannot be an empty string: ${varName}");
}
testNullFieldState
I also created some snippets for checking variables that is not sent as arguments (the big difference is the exception type, now being an IllegalStateException instead).
if (${varName} == null) {
throw new IllegalStateException(
"Illegal state. The variable or class field cannot be null: ${varName}");
}
testNullOrEmptyStringFieldState
if (${varName} == null) {
throw new IllegalStateException(
"Illegal state. The variable or class field cannot be null: ${varName}");
}
${varName} = ${varName}.trim();
if (${varName}.isEmpty()) {
throw new IllegalStateException(
"Illegal state. The variable or class field " +
"cannot be an empty string: ${varName}");
}
testArgument
This is a general template for testing a variable. It took me a few years to really learn to appreciate this one, now I use it a lot (in combination with the above templates of course!)
if (!(${varName} ${testExpression})) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"Illegal argument. The argument ${varName} (" + ${varName} + ") " +
"did not pass the test: ${varName} ${testExpression}");
}
You enter a variable name or a condition that returns a value, followed by an operand ("==", "<", ">" etc) and another value or variable and if the test fails the resulting code will throw an IllegalArgumentException.
The reason for the slightly complicated if clause, with the whole expression wrapped in a "!()" is to make it possible to reuse the test condition in the exception message.
Perhaps it will confuse a colleague, but only if they have to look at the code, which they might not have to if you throw these kind of exceptions...
Here's an example with arrays:
public void copy(String[] from, String[] to) {
if (!(from.length == to.length)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"Illegal argument. The argument from.length (" +
from.length + ") " +
"did not pass the test: from.length == to.length");
}
}
You get this result by calling up the template, typing "from.length" [TAB] "== to.length".
The result is way funnier than an "ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException" or similar and may actually give your users a chance to figure out the problem.
Enjoy!
System.out.println(${word_selection}${});${cursor}means? It sounds like there's a way to select a word and automatically encase it inside asysoutcall, am I right? How? – Kilmer