How should I return different types in a method based on the value of a string in Java?
- by Siracuse
I'm new to Java and I have come to having the following problem:
I have created several classes which all implement the interface "Parser". I have a JavaParser, PythonParser, CParser and finally a TextParser.
I'm trying to write a method so it will take either a File or a String (representing a filename) and return the appropriate parser given the extension of the file.
Here is some psuedo-code of what I'm basically attempting to do:
public Parser getParser(String filename)
{
String extension = filename.substring(filename.lastIndexOf("."));
switch(extension)
{
case "py": return new PythonParser();
case "java": return new JavaParser();
case "c": return new CParser();
default: return new TextParser();
}
}
In general, is this the right way to handle this situation? Also, how should I handle the fact that Java doesn't allow switching on strings? Should I use the .hashcode() value of the strings?
I feel like there is some design pattern or something for handling this but it eludes me. Is this how you would do it?
