Is it a must to pass a parameter to a set method? In this case setting the value is depending on ano-CodePudding

I know it's the common thing and maybe the best practice to pass a parameter to a set method, but in this case the new field I'm adding is depending on the value of another field in the same object, here is an example of code:

    abstract public class BaseContent {

    protected String sentiment;
    protected Double sentimentScore;


    public String getSentiment() {
        return sentiment;
    }
    
     /**
     * Set sentiment value depending on sentimentScore value:
     * If less than 0, set sentiment as negative.
     * If more than 0, set sentiment as positive.
     * If equals to 0, set sentiment as neutral.
     */
    public void setSentiment() {
        if (sentimentScore != null) {
            if (sentimentScore < 0) {
                sentiment = "negative";
            } else if (sentimentScore > 0) {
                sentiment = "positive";
            } else {
                sentiment = "neutral";
            }
        }
    }

I thought about creating only a getter method and have this functionality there, but that will force me to update the value of the new field in the same getter method, also I don't care about saving the new value in the database if that helps.

I might be having wrong thoughts so please give me your opinion on this!

CodePudding user response：

If String sentiment field is transient, then it may be just removed and computed in the getter as suggested in the comments:

public abstract class BaseContent {

    protected Double sentimentScore;

     /**
     * Return sentiment value depending on sentimentScore value
     * If less than 0, set sentiment as negative.
     * If more than 0, set sentiment as positive.
     * If equals to 0, set sentiment as neutral.
     */
    public String getSentiment() {
        return Optional.ofNullable(sentimentScore)
            .map(sc -> switch((int)Math.signum(sc)) {
                case -1 -> "negative";
                case  0 -> "neutral";
                case  1 -> "positive";
                default -> "unknown";
            })
            .orElse("unknown");
    }
    
    public void setSentiment(Double score) {
        this.sentimentScore = score;
    }
}

CodePudding user response：

Thanks for the suggestions, adding the functionality to the setter of the field that it's depending on (sentimentScore) solved it, after getting the model from the database, the mapper looks for the setter of that field and runs it.