Keith Devens .com

Angry code comments

This is the comment I just wrote to myself to remind me what I have to write next time I pick up the code. If you've been paying attention, I've been working on some Java code ... Sorry about the foul language.

// FUCKING LOOPING, INDEX KEEPING, TEDIOUS ASS CODE i'M GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE

// FOR THIS SHIT THAT TAKES ME TWO LINES IN A SCRIPTING LANGUAGE!!!

All to do some simple string manipulations.

Hey, look at that - it wasn't too bad All I really needed was a version of strtr that had the limitation that the "from" characters could only be one character long. It worked the first time too.

    public static String strtr(String str, char[] from, String[] to){

        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(str);

        int n,m;

        for(n = 0; n < sb.length(); n++){

            for(m = 0; m < from.length; m++){

                if(from[m] == sb.charAt(n)){

                    sb.replace(n, n+1, to[m]);

                    n = n + (to[m].length() - 1);

                    break;

                }

            }

        }

        return sb.toString();

    }

Oh, and since I don't know how expensive the .length() function on Strings or StringBuffers is, I may replace that and pre-cache it (adjusting it for when I lengthen the string, of course).

Also note that the above code example is an excellent demonstration of how Java does not support the Uniform Reference Principle. .length for an array is different than .length() for a String.

Permalink | 4 Comments | id 2765

00:23 (utc-4)
edited: 12:15 (utc-4)

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Next time you're doing string manipulation, just remember that you could be doing it in fscking slow-ass VB. Grrr!

Oh, and I'm back at college again. I notice you sent me some emails that I haven't been able to see and I'll get to them as soon as I can. Sorry, dude!

I've no idea how expensive it is on strings, but length() is pretty darn cheap on StringBuffer. Even then, it's just good practice to cache it anyway. After all, if you can move a call outside a loop, it's a good thing.

What's really sucky about Java strings is that they're declared as final so you can't create extended versions of them with your own extra stuff. Now that sucks.

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Monday, September 16, 2002

Angry code comments

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