While Java didn't invent putting a toString method in the base class of every object, it certainly made it mainstream. The nice thing about the method is that it allows you to turn any object into a string, though it's up to the implementor to decide what a good string representation is. But what if you want to ensure that the object you're handed is really and truly a string, not just something you can convert to a string?

teknopaul's co-worker found their own solution:

While poring through some VB .Net code, John noticed some odd things in their datamodel. For example, a different process would scan files, and log any "suspicious" files into a database. The program John supported would then report on that data.

One of their classes had a property which looked like this:

You have some text, and need to replace every sequence of spaces with a single space. E.g., My text becomes My text. Now, if you're most of us, you ignore the famous quote and reach straight for regexes.

But Samuel's co-worker isn't most of us.

Greg's co-worker really wanted to make sure that a variable was correctly set to true or false. So they did this:

if (isValid == true)
{
	isValid = true;
}
else
{
	isValid = false;
}

Meta-programming- programs which generate programs- is a delightful hobby, but usually shouldn't be used in production code. Usually. I mean, if you're working in LISP, 90% of your program is going to be macros.

But if you're using PHP and JavaScript, there's good odds that someone you work with has decided to combine these two tastes together to create something nobody wants to taste.

Zeke sends us a C# snippet from an extract-transform-load process his company uses. It's… special.

private void ResizeColumn(string table, string column, int minSize)
{
    if(null == _connection) return;

    string sqlReadSize = "SELECT DATA_LENGTH,DATA_TYPE,DATA_PRECISION,DATA_SCALE FROM USER_TAB_COLS WHERE TABLE_NAME = '" + table.ToUpper() + "' AND COLUMN_NAME = '" + column.ToUpper() + "'";
    string data_length = "";
    string data_type = "";
    string data_precision = "";
    string data_scale = "";
    string sizeInfo = minSize.ToString();
    
    IDataReader r = null;

    try
    {
        r = _connection.DbAccessor.ExecuteSqlText.ExecuteReader(sqlReadSize);
        if(null != r && r.Read())
        {
            if(!r.IsDBNull(0)) data_length = Convert.ToString(r[0]);
            if(!r.IsDBNull(1)) data_type = Convert.ToString(r[1]);
            if(!r.IsDBNull(2)) data_precision = Convert.ToString(r[2]);
            if(!r.IsDBNull(3)) data_scale = Convert.ToString(r[3]);

            r.Close();
            r = null;

        }
    }
    catch(Exception ex)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        return;
    }
    finally
    {
        if(null != r)
        {
            r.Close();
            r = null;
        }
    }
    if(data_type == "NUMBER")
    {
        return;
    }

    if(data_type == "DATE")
    {
        return;
    }

    if(data_type == "CLOB")
    {
        return;
    }

    if(data_type == "BLOB")
    {
        return;
    }
    
    if(minSize <= Convert.ToInt32(data_length))
    {
        return;
    }

    string sqlAlterSize = "ALTER TABLE " + table + " modify " 
        + column.ToUpper() + " " + data_type + "(" + sizeInfo + ")";


    try
    {
        _connection.DbAccessor.ExecuteSqlText.ExecuteScalar(sqlAlterSize);
    }
    catch(Exception ex)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        return;
    }
}