Working Effectively With Legacy Code by Michael Feathers (isbn 0-13-117705-2) is a great book. The very first dependency breaking technique (p326) is called Adapt Parameter. It uses this Java example:
public class ARMDispatcher
{
public void populate(ParameterSource request) {
String[] values
= request.getParameters(pageStateName);
if (values != null && values.length > 0)
{
marketBindings.put(
pageStateName + getDateStamp(),
values[0]);
}
...
}
...
}
Michael writes:
In this class, the populate method accepts an HttpServletRequest as a parameter. ... It would be great to use Extract Interface (362) to make a narrower interface that supplies only the methods we need, but we can't extract an interface from another interface. ...
and a bit later...
Adapt Parameter is one case in which we don't Preserve Signatures (312). Use extra care.
Well, here's a variation on
Adapt Parameter where we
do Preserve Signatures. I'll stick with the Java example, but the idea is broadly applicable...
First we create our ParameterSource interface and fill it with the signatures of the methods in HttpServletRequest that our populate method calls:
public interface ParameterSource
{
String[] getParameters(String name);
}
then we implement the adapter for HttpServletRequest:
public class HttpServletRequestParameterSource
implements ParameterSource
{
public HttpServletRequestParameterSource(HttpServletRequest request) {
this.request = request;
}
public String[] getParameters(String name) {
return request.getParameters(name);
}
private HttpServletRequest request;
}
Next we add an overload of populate taking a ParameterSource and implement it with an
exact copy-paste:
public class ARMDispatcher
{
public void populate(ParameterSource request) {
String[] values
= request.getParameters(pageStateName);
if (values != null && values.length > 0)
{
marketBindings.put(
pageStateName + getDateStamp(),
values[0]);
}
...
}
public void populate(HttpServletRequest request) {
String[] values
= request.getParameters(pageStateName);
if (values != null && values.length > 0)
{
marketBindings.put(
pageStateName + getDateStamp(),
values[0]);
}
...
}
...
}
Now we
Lean on the Compiler (315) to make sure we haven't missed any methods in HttpServletRequest that our populate method calls. Add any we missed to the ParameterSource interface. Implement them in HttpServletRequestParameterSource as one liners. When it compiles we can refactor to this:
public class ARMDispatcher
{
public void populate(ParameterSource request) {
String[] values
= request.getParameters(pageStateName);
if (values != null && values.length > 0)
{
marketBindings.put(
pageStateName + getDateStamp(),
values[0]);
}
...
}
public void populate(HttpServletRequest request) {
populate(new HttpServletRequestParameterSource(request));
}
...
}
And now we have a seam we can pick it at...
public class FakeParameterSource
implements ParameterSource
{
public String[] values;
public String[] getParameters(String name) {
return values;
}
}
is an excellent book by Ivan Illich et al (isbn 0-7145-2510-3). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
