naming a method - using set() when *not* setting a property?
        Posted  
        
            by user151841
        on Stack Overflow
        
        See other posts from Stack Overflow
        
            or by user151841
        
        
        
        Published on 2010-04-27T15:23:26Z
        Indexed on 
            2010/04/27
            15:53 UTC
        
        
        Read the original article
        Hit count: 225
        
oop
|naming-conventions
Is setX() method name appropriate for only for setting class property X?
For instance, I have a class where the output is a string of an html table. Before you can you can call getTable, you have to call setTable(), which just looks at a other properties and decides how to construct the table. It doesn't actually directly set any class property -- only causes the property to be set. When it's called, the class will construct strHtmlTable, but you can't specify it.
So, calling it setTable breaks the convention of get and set being interfaces for class properties.
Is there another naming convention for this kind of method?
Edit: in this particular class, there are at least two ( and in total 8 optional ) other methods that must be called before the class knows everything it needs to to construct the table. I chose to have the data set as separate methods rather than clutter up the __construct() with 8 optional parameters which I'll never remember the order of.
© Stack Overflow or respective owner