Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #26511

Fixing "typos" in enums...

From	Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject	Fixing "typos" in enums...
Date	2013-11-15 16:25 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<slrnl8cing.mol.avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> (permalink)

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Let's assume, some non native English speaker writes up
a library, that's really useful and gaining broader use.

Now, the author may have once caught up some misspelling
of a common word (like e.g. thinking that "first" was 
spelled "furst" and that with a confidence level ways
above "I'd better look this up").

Eventually this misspelling goes into an enum constant,
and by the time the first user reports it, the library
is already too much in use to lightheartedly apply
Plan "A" (namely fixing the typo and thereby inducing a
compatibility issue)

Now, Plan B could be to rename the enum constant, but add
a public static field by the old bad name (initialized 
with the reference to the spelling-corrected field), to
alleviate the compatibility issue at least for those who
merely used the enum's field's name in their code.

 // public enum Foo { FURST, SECOND }
 public enum Foo { FIRST, SECOND; public static final FURST = FIRST; }

Any user having done a switch over that enum will still
need to modify his code. Ditto anyone doing string comparisons
on foo.name(), but that is most probably a bad idea, anyway.

I'd further denote "Just leave the typo in" as "Plan *Z*",
and ask for better strategies. (at least better than Plan Z)

PS: I vaguely remember that even Sun Java had some typos in its
  API, but that predated enums, so adding a second constant with
  same value but corrected name was a triviality back then...

PPS: a similar problem could arise with misspelled class names,
  but that's not currently in my focus.

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Thread

Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-15 16:25 +0000
  Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-11-15 09:05 -0800
    Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 17:20 +0000
      Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-11-18 09:33 -0800
        Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-18 13:37 -0500
        Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 18:58 +0000
          Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-11-18 11:35 -0800
            Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 20:34 +0000
  Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-15 20:10 +0100
    Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 17:29 +0000
      Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-18 19:38 +0100
        Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 19:34 +0000
  Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2013-11-16 10:16 +0100
    Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 18:25 +0000
      Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-18 13:45 -0500
        Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2013-11-18 20:20 +0100
        Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-18 20:09 +0000
          Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-11-18 17:00 -0500
            Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2013-11-19 15:39 +0000
  Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... Arivald <NOSPAMarivald@interia.pl> - 2013-11-19 00:29 +0100
    Re: Fixing "typos" in enums... lipska the kat <"lipskathekat at yahoo dot co dot uk"> - 2013-11-19 11:14 +0000

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