What Is A Helper Method

We put our head down and begin coding and this is our first cut.

public void printTry1(String option1String,
						String option2String,
						String option3String)  {
	if (option1String.equals("1")
		|| option1String.equalsIgnoreCase("Y")
		|| option1String.equalsIgnoreCase("Yes")
		|| option1String.equalsIgnoreCase("T")
		|| option1String.equalsIgnoreCase("TRUE"))
			printHeader();
	if (option2String.equals("1")
		|| option2String.equalsIgnoreCase("Y")
		|| option2String.equalsIgnoreCase("Yes")
		|| option2String.equalsIgnoreCase("T")
		|| option2String.equalsIgnoreCase("TRUE"))
			printDetails();
	if (option3String.equals("1")
		|| option3String.equalsIgnoreCase("Y")
		|| option3String.equalsIgnoreCase("Yes")
		|| option3String.equalsIgnoreCase("T")
		|| option3String.equalsIgnoreCase("TRUE"))
			printFooter();
}

Ideal Code

Code review does not go so good. We're told the method is way too complex.

We use our imagination. This would be ideal if we had booleans as this code sample demonstrates.

public void printImagined(boolean option1,
							boolean option2,
							boolean option3)  {
	if (option1)
		printHeader();
	if (option2)
		printDetails();
	if (option3)
		printFooter();
}

Helper Method to Allow Ideal Code

We can see that the complexity is the String adds a lot of complexity compared to a boolean.

So we decide to move that logic out into a helper method and call it "conformOption".
By partitioning the logic if we now look at our "print" method, it is effectively the simple "ideal" code we hoped for.

public void 2print(String option1String,
					String option2String,
					String option3String)  {
	if (conformOption(option1String))
		printHeader();
	if (conformOption(option2String))
		printDetails();
	if (conformOption(option3String))
		printFooter();
}

private boolean 1conformOption(String option)  {
	List<String> trueStrings;
	trueStrings = Arrays.asList("y", "t", "yes", "true", "1");
	for (String trueString: trueStrings)
		if (option.equalsIgnoreCase(trueString))
			return true;
	return false;
}