Skip to main content

Code refactoring - NULL check (Part 3)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
In my last two posts I wrote about “Null Object Pattern” in different scenarios. This post is related to this subject and we will discover how we can use this “pattern” when we are working with interfaces.
Let’s assume that we have the following interface and implementation of the interface:
public interface IFoo
{
  int A { get;set; }
  int B { get;set; }
  int C { get;set; }
}

public class Foo : IFoo
{
  public int A { get;set; }
  public int B { get;set; }
  public int C { get;set; }

}
In this case we would need a mechanism to implement a null object. We could create a static property to the Foo object that represents the null (default) value. This could be a solution but is not the best one.
Off topic: I really don’t like the NULL naming. I would prefer a name like “Default”.
What about creating a class that represents our null interface?
Creating a class that implement our interface that represent our null object will help us a lot when we need to check if the object represent the “null” object or an initialize object. Also, in this way we will not have our Foo class polluted with different fields/properties.
public class NullFoo : IFoo  
{
  private int _defaultA = 0;
  private int _defaultB = -1;
  private int _defaultC = -1000;
  
  public int A { get { return _defaultA } }
  public int B { get { return _defaultB } }
  public int C { get { return _defaultC } }
}
What we gain using this solution? We have a code that is clearer and easier to understand. On the other hand, we added complexity to our code. Also we still need to initialize the object with value and detect if an object represent the “null” object.
In conclusion even if this solution adds complexity to our code, the code will be easier to read and our intention is very clear to the reader.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Windows Docker Containers can make WIN32 API calls, use COM and ASP.NET WebForms

After the last post , I received two interesting questions related to Docker and Windows. People were interested if we do Win32 API calls from a Docker container and if there is support for COM. WIN32 Support To test calls to WIN32 API, let’s try to populate SYSTEM_INFO class. [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)] public struct SYSTEM_INFO { public uint dwOemId; public uint dwPageSize; public uint lpMinimumApplicationAddress; public uint lpMaximumApplicationAddress; public uint dwActiveProcessorMask; public uint dwNumberOfProcessors; public uint dwProcessorType; public uint dwAllocationGranularity; public uint dwProcessorLevel; public uint dwProcessorRevision; } ... [DllImport("kernel32")] static extern void GetSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO pSI); ... SYSTEM_INFO pSI = new SYSTEM_INFO(

ADO.NET provider with invariant name 'System.Data.SqlClient' could not be loaded

Today blog post will be started with the following error when running DB tests on the CI machine: threw exception: System.InvalidOperationException: The Entity Framework provider type 'System.Data.Entity.SqlServer.SqlProviderServices, EntityFramework.SqlServer' registered in the application config file for the ADO.NET provider with invariant name 'System.Data.SqlClient' could not be loaded. Make sure that the assembly-qualified name is used and that the assembly is available to the running application. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=260882 for more information. at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.DependencyResolution.ProviderServicesFactory.GetInstance(String providerTypeName, String providerInvariantName) This error happened only on the Continuous Integration machine. On the devs machines, everything has fine. The classic problem – on my machine it’s working. The CI has the following configuration: TeamCity .NET 4.51 EF 6.0.2 VS2013 It see

Navigating Cloud Strategy after Azure Central US Region Outage

 Looking back, July 19, 2024, was challenging for customers using Microsoft Azure or Windows machines. Two major outages affected customers using CrowdStrike Falcon or Microsoft Azure computation resources in the Central US. These two outages affected many people and put many businesses on pause for a few hours or even days. The overlap of these two issues was a nightmare for travellers. In addition to blue screens in the airport terminals, they could not get additional information from the airport website, airline personnel, or the support line because they were affected by the outage in the Central US region or the CrowdStrike outage.   But what happened in reality? A faulty CrowdStrike update affected Windows computers globally, from airports and healthcare to small businesses, affecting over 8.5m computers. Even if the Falson Sensor software defect was identified and a fix deployed shortly after, the recovery took longer. In parallel with CrowdStrike, Microsoft provided a too