Separating mechanism from policy is very important issue of SW design.
This is also true for microscopic area – implementing function.
Here is one of simplest example – function that calculates area of rectangle.
int rect_area(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
return (right - left) * (bottom - top);
}
Simple, isn’t it?
But, this function doesn’t have any exception/error handling.
Let’s add some of them.
int rect_area(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
if (left >= right)
left = right;
if (top >= bottom)
top = bottom;
return (right - left) * (bottom - top);
}
It’s seems good.
Soon after, another function that calculates area of rectangle is needed.
But, this function should return error value if input rectangle is invalid.
I think quick solution is
int rect_area2(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
if (left > right || top > bottom)
return -1;
return (right - left) * (bottom - top);
}
But, in this solution, code for calculating area of rectangle is duplicated.
At above example, this is just one-line code. So, duplicating is not a big deal.
But, it’s not good in terms of code structure.
Why did this happen?
Calculating rectangle area is ‘Mechanism’.
But, exception/error handling is ‘Policy’ at this example.
So, above example should be implemented like below.
static inline int _rect_area(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
return (right - left) * (bottom - top);
}
int rect_area(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
if (left >= right)
left = right;
if (top >= bottom)
top = bottom;
return _rect_area(left, top, right, bottom);
}
int rect_area2(int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
if (left > right || top > bottom)
return -1;
return _rect_area(left, top, right, bottom);
}
Can you know the difference?
‘_rect_area’ is implementation of pure ‘Mechanism’.
And policy is implemented at each interface function.
Even for simple function, developer should consider CONCEPT of separating Mechanism from Policy.
