Throwing exception vs returning null value with switch statement
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by Greg
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Published on 2010-04-02T16:55:14Z
Indexed on
2010/04/02
17:03 UTC
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So I have function that formats a date to coerce to given enum DateType{CURRENT, START, END} what would be the best way to handling return value with cases that use switch statement
public static String format(Date date, DateType datetype) {
..validation checks
switch(datetype){
case CURRENT:{
return getFormattedDate(date, "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
}
...
default:throw new ("Something strange happend");
}
}
OR throw excpetion at the end
public static String format(Date date, DateType datetype) {
..validation checks
switch(datetype){
case CURRENT:{
return getFormattedDate(date, "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
}
...
}
//It will never reach here, just to make compiler happy
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Something strange happend");
}
OR return null
public static String format(Date date, DateType datetype) {
..validation checks
switch(datetype){
case CURRENT:{
return getFormattedDate(date, "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss");
}
...
}
return null;
}
What would be the best practice here ? Also all the enum values will be handled in the case statement
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