SQLite insert function/method too many parameter arguments, how to refactor?

Question

shown here is a method that is for inserting values into columns of an SQLite database. I have never worked with a database with this many columns before. and there are over 15 tables in this database. I did not design the database, someone else did.

how do I refactor this android method if possible to make it better or less verbose, it looks like i can't use a collections object like ArrayList because all of the arguments are not one type, there are multiple types like String, Float, and int.

so this would require making a custom java function, however that does not look like it is worth the effort. and there are 15 different tables that would require 15 custom objects.

some of what is general knowledge would suggest that too many arguments in a method is more than 4 or 5. Not sure why that is the common accepted way of thinking. If that is true that my java method needs a haircut real bad. or worse an enema.

any ideas?

  public void insertNewRowInspectionPlan(int testOneInput, String testTwoInput,
 int testThreeInput, float testFourInput, int TestFiveInput, int testSixInput,
 int testSevenInput,  int testEightInput, int TestNineInput, float testTenInput,
 int testElevenInput, String testTwelveInput){
                  ContentValues contentValues = new ContentValues();
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_1, testOneInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_2, testTwoInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_3, testTheeInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_4, testFourInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_5, testFiveInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_6, testSixInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_7, testSevenInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_8, testEightInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_9, testNineInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_10, testTenInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_11, testElevenInput);
                  contentValues.put(COLUMN_12, testTwelveInput);
   sqLiteDatabase.insert(INSPECTION_PLAN_TRANSACTION, null, contentValues);
       }

example? are you suggesting that I nest another data type inside of a hashMap? — Kevik
– Kevik, Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 8:06
hm is an Hashmap object. hm.put("testOneinput", value); hm.put("testtTwoInout" value); . . . — Tugrul
– Tugrul, Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 8:08

Amit Sharma · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:12:21Z

Create a class for test with get set methods then you dont have to pass that much parameter in function you can pas direct refrence variable of that class

Example: 









public class PropertiesContacts {



    int _id;
    String _title;
    String _description ;

    public int getID(){
        return this._id;
    }


    public void setID(int id){
        this._id = id;
    }


    public String gettitle(){
        return this._title;
    }


    public void settitle(String title){
        this._title = title;
    }



    public String getdescription (){
        return this._description ;
    }


    public void setdescription (String description ){
        this._description  = description ;
    }


}



Set properties value in activity
Like

PropertiesContacts  obj=new PropertiesContacts ();
obj._id=1;
obj._title ="amit";
obj._description ="test";
insertNewRowInspectionPlan(obj);
Hope you will understan

mthmulders · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:12:32Z

You can consider creating a class whose instance variables reflect the structure of the table. Instead of passing 15 method parameters, you just pass the Java object that represents one row in a table. So, imagine the table is called InspectionPlan, your method would look roughly like this:

public void insertNewRowInspectionPlan(InspectionPlan inspectionPlan) {
    ContentValues contentValues = new ContentValues();
    contentValues.put(COLUMN_1, inspectionPlan.getTestOneInput());
    // So on, so forth
    sqLiteDatabase.insert(INSPECTION_PLAN_TRANSACTION, null, contentValues);
}

This is still quite a lot of work, since you manually have to copy each column from the Java InspectionPlan object to the ContentValues object. Even that could be avoided by using some kind of ORM (Object-Relational Mapping). On Android, you can consider OrmLite, but there might be other options as well.

gunar · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:13:18Z

1

When I am dealing with this kind of code I am extracting those paramaters as a separate class and in that class provide a method to return a ContentValues data structure. Something like:

public class DaoDataClass {
    private int testOneInput, testThreeInput, TestFiveInput, testSixInput, testSevenInput, testEightInput, TestNineInput, testElevenInput;
    private float testFourInput, testTenInput;
    private String testTwoInput, testTwelveInput;

    public ContentValues getContentValues() {
        ContentValues contentValues = new ContentValues();
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_1, testOneInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_2, testTwoInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_3, testTheeInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_4, testFourInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_5, testFiveInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_6, testSixInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_7, testSevenInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_8, testEightInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_9, testNineInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_10, testTenInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_11, testElevenInput);
        contentValues.put(COLUMN_12, testTwelveInput);
        return contentValues;
    }

    /**
     * Getters and setters below
     * */
}

Now, whoever calls the SQLite persistence will initially create a DaoDataClass object and your code transforms to:

public void insertNewRowInspectionPlan(DaoDataClass dataObject) {
    ContentValues contentValues = dataObject.getContentValues();
    sqLiteDatabase.insert(INSPECTION_PLAN_TRANSACTION, null, contentValues);
}

answered Jul 18, 2013 at 8:13

gunar

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5 Comments

gunar Over a year ago

... within a minute, 3 people provided the same answer :)

Kevik Over a year ago

all of these are fantastic answers, so it looks like this is the best way to do it. by creating a class. i am still learning this stuff. it is great when I show people my code, it is always getting better from this. I am going to add this type of class to my project right now.

gunar Over a year ago

Thinking again I would not keep getContentValuee in DataDaoClass, but rather make it static in a DaoUtils class. That way DataDaoClass would be more specific - this class needs to store only the data info. Would be also easier to maintain and extend.

Kevik Over a year ago

this is only way to reduce the number of parameters from 12 down to one, and that was the main issue i asked about, however i wonder if the performance is different using a class than the way i was doing it with too many arguments. like if it is better or worse than before. one issue is the memory required by creation of objects

gunar Over a year ago

I am sure the performance will matter if you would be talking about at least hundreds of thousands of such objects managed in a very short interval. Which is not the case on mobile apps as you would very soon run out of memory.

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