Comment On Formatting a Phone Number - The Long Version

omg.

formattedComment.Append("f");
formattedComment.Append("i");
formattedComment.Append("r");
formattedComment.Append("s");
formattedComment.Append("t");
return formattedComment.ToString;

Ah, the for-case. An easy mistake to make. It just seems so natural.

Djikstra would be happy. Two or more sequential statements, use a for-case.

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

for(int i = 0; i < 3; i++)

{

  switch(i)

  {

    case 0:

      comment.append("W");

      break;

    case 1:

      comment.append("T");

      break;

    case 2:

      comment.append("F");

      break;

  }

}



return comment;

[code]
For i = 0 To 3
Select Case i
Case 0
response.Append("W")
Case 1
response.Append("T")
Case 2
response.Append("F")
Case 3
response.Append("?")
End Select
Next

Damn, now you've got me wondering if I've ever done that. I've coded a lot of stupid things in twenty-five years, but I can't remember doing a for-case . . . which means I probably did and then savagely repressed the memory.

The return of the for-case paradigm!

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Using the same verification standard, I have verified that my ****** is 10 inches long.

Nice clean and readable piece of code, cheers !

python-style:

output = ''

for i in range(4):

  if i == 0:

    output.append("W")

  elif i == 1:

    output.append("T")

  elif i == 2:

    output.append("F")

  elif i == 3:

    output.append("?")

print output

Bah! Mine goes up to eleven!

Sorry, let me try again

campkev:

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Using the same verification standard, I have verified that my ****** is 10 inches long.

BAH! Mine goes up to eleven!

What's wrong with a for-case? It's not needed here (LUT can be used, and would be much better here), but for more advanced decoding it's a perfectly valid way of running a (fixed length) state machine.

I haven't have my coffee yet, but it doesn't look so far fetched.

I want to see what the StripNonNumericCharacters function looks like!

JimmyVile:

What's wrong with a for-case? It's not needed here (LUT can be used, and would be much better here), but for more advanced decoding it's a perfectly valid way of running a (fixed length) state machine.

I haven't have my coffee yet, but it doesn't look so far fetched.

Promise me you won't write any code until you've had your coffee.

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Where does it do that? I only see a check for length = 0, otherwise it assumes all the characters are there. So if cleanPhoneNumber comes back with only 9 chars or less, it will blow up.

'i' before 'e', except after 'c' ...

my Str $tired_comment = "";

for 0 .. 2 {
when 0 { $tired_comment ~= "W" }
when 1 { $tired_comment ~= "T" }
when 2 { $tired_comment ~= "F" }
}

say $tired_comment;

=end

Really, some people just need to be beaten daily with a good reference for their programming language of choice until they learn that it has more features than the ones they misuse every day.

some schmoe:

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Where does it do that? I only see a check for length = 0, otherwise it assumes all the characters are there. So if cleanPhoneNumber comes back with only 9 chars or less, it will blow up.

Let me help you out

dpm:

<sarcasm>Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.</sarcasm>

Otterdam:

JimmyVile:

What's wrong with a for-case? It's not needed here (LUT can be used, and would be much better here), but for more advanced decoding it's a perfectly valid way of running a (fixed length) state machine.

I haven't have my coffee yet, but it doesn't look so far fetched.

Promise me you won't write any code until you've had your coffee.

Yeah, i needed a coffe to see the WTF too. The downside is that I almost choke on it.

What's wrong with a for-case? It's not needed here (LUT can be used, and would be much better here), but for more advanced decoding it's a perfectly valid way of running a (fixed length) state machine

No, a for-case is completely retarded. A while-case is a perfectly valid way of running a state machine. Something like:

int state = 0;

while(state < stateMax)
{
case 0:
// This is probably not a real function call, but a few
// lines directly inline, but you get the idea
state = doSomethingAndGetNextState();
break;
case 1:
state = doSomethingAndGetNextState();
break;
...
}

If you muck with the state variable in your loop construct, you'll complicate the hell out of your state machine...

You know, the real WTF and really sad thing is that people who write stuff like that likely get paid way more than I do...

s/(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})/(\1) \2-\3/

amidoinitrite?

Otterdam:

JimmyVile:

What's wrong with a for-case? It's not needed here (LUT can be used, and would be much better here), but for more advanced decoding it's a perfectly valid way of running a (fixed length) state machine.

I haven't have my coffee yet, but it doesn't look so far fetched.

Promise me you won't write any code until you've had your coffee.

I too have seen a for-case used for a large state machine. In particular, some of the cases modified the value currently in the for loop, to skip states or to go back states in some cases.

Sadly, instead of making it sane, I added more states to it. Yes, I am ashamed, but sometimes you just gotta get the damn job done and get paid.

campkev:

some schmoe:

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Where does it do that? I only see a check for length = 0, otherwise it assumes all the characters are there. So if cleanPhoneNumber comes back with only 9 chars or less, it will blow up.

Let me help you out

dpm:

<sarcasm>Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.</sarcasm>

I beg your pardon! My claim that "the code sucks" was not sarcastic at all.

bashscript'd

for i in `seq 0 3`; do
case "$i" in
"0")
echo -n "W";
;;
"1")
echo -n "T";
;;
"2")
echo -n "F";
;;
"3")
echo;
;;
esac;
done

daniel:

Ah, the for-case. An easy mistake to make. It just seems so natural.

>.> Really? If I ever did this, I'd shoot myself....

OMG, that's a major WTF. No 'Else' case? that's baaaaad. Always put an 'Else' case.
Some people never learn. tsk, tsk.

campkev:

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Using the same verification standard, I have verified that my ****** is 10 inches long.

My ruler is 12 inches. A much more common format.

Yeah, in my first year as an asp.net coder, I'm pretty sure I did that. Though, I did add length validation so as to not add the parens on a number that was only 7 digits. Looking back, I regret using the for-case.

At least he put it in a function.

It's wrong here because you could remove the for and case, and just have the statements execute in order. Using for and case statements to implement a state machine is probably fine (though I'd consider "while" instead of "for"). Using it to implement a linear ordering of statements is not fine; that's what the statement terminator (newline, semicolon, whatever) is for.

Naw - it's much too readable.

            For i = 0 To 14

                Select Case i

                    Case 0

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("(")

                    Case 1,2,3

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(i+1))

                    Case 4

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(") ")

                    Case Is < 7

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(i-2))

                    Case 8

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("-")

                    Case 9 To 13

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(i-3))

                    Case Else

			Return formattedPhoneNumber.ToString

                End Select

            Next

            For i = 0 To 12



                Select Case i

                    Case 0

                    Case 1

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(1))

                    Case 2

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(2))

                    Case 3

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(3))

                    Case 4

                    Case 5

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(5))

                    Case 6

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(6))

                    Case 7

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(7))

                    Case 8

                    Case 9

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(9))

                    Case 10

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(10))

                    Case 11

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(11))

                    Case 12

                        unformattedPhoneNumber.Append(uncleanPhoneNumber.Chars(12))



                End Select



            Next

Obvious, isn't it?

Kermos:

You know, the real WTF and really sad thing is that people who write stuff like that likely get paid way more than I do...

Thanks, now I've gone from laughing to crying...

Pim:

I want to see what the StripNonNumericCharacters function looks like!

Previous comment should have quoted this before the code segment. :/

Typo:
Case 9 To 12
..of course. ;)

If you look carefully, you'll notice that the code isn't even checking for the right range. A zero-to-twelve loop does 13 passes, not 12.

At least it shouldn't take too long to fix this crap without side-effects. But if this guy managed to screw with something so simple, I can only imagine how awful this system's more complicated functions can be.

And if anyone suppose that the right way to handle a phone validation is a state machine, go back to Programming Logic 101 right away.

Trondster:

Naw - it's much too readable.

                    Case Is < 7

I really, really hope that whatever language that is *guarantees* evaluations are performed in order of appearance, or I'm really, really gonna laugh.

campkev:

Let me help you out

dpm:

<sarcasm>Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.</sarcasm>

Ah-ha!

Smash King:

And if anyone suppose that the right way to handle a phone validation is a state machine, go back to Programming Logic 101 right away.

You'd let them keep "programmer" as a career choice? You are far more lenient than I.

...
...

.... uh.. wow..

That was amazing stupidity.

Almost as bad as an obfuscated 700 line function I saw once in Perl that gets the mean average of an array of numbers. I wish I had code from that project somewhere, that was absolutely amazing, and it took me hours to figure out what it did.

campkev:

dpm:

Yeah, the code sucks, but at least the length is verified before they try to access all ten digits they expect to be there.

Using the same verification standard, I have verified that my ****** is 10 inches long.

Yes, but is it clean?

My god, I remember when I thought VB was awesome. How stupid and naive I was in those days...

Smash King:

If you look carefully, you'll notice that the code isn't even checking for the right range. A zero-to-twelve loop does 13 passes, not 12.

I see the "0 to 12" and I see "case 0" through "case 12" inclusive, all of which are correct (given the original WTF), so I have no idea what you're complaining about.

Bah, ugly!

print ''.join(['W', 'T', 'F', '!'][i] for i in xrange(4))

Horrendous.

What is neat is that you can strip away, Picasso-style, and get at the essence of ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting.

Public Shared Function ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting(ByVal phoneNumber As String) As String

        Dim cleanPhoneNumber As String

        Dim formattedPhoneNumber As New System.Text.StringBuilder

        'Dim i As Integer



                'If phoneNumber Is Nothing Then

                        'Return String.Empty

                'End If



        cleanPhoneNumber = StripNonNumericCharacters(phoneNumber)



        If cleanPhoneNumber.Length = 0 Then

            Return String.Empty

        Else



            'For i = 0 To 12



                'Select Case i

                    'Case 0

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("(")

                    'Case 1

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(0))

                    'Case 2

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(1))

                    'Case 3

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(2))

                    'Case 4

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(") ")

                    'Case 5

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(3))

                    'Case 6

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(4))

                    'Case 7

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(5))

                    'Case 8

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("-")

                    'Case 9

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(6))

                    'Case 10

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(7))

                    'Case 11

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(8))

                    'Case 12

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(9))



                'End Select



            'Next



            Return formattedPhoneNumber.ToString



        End If



    End Function

Or with lines stripped out:

Public Shared Function ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting(ByVal phoneNumber As String) As String



    Dim cleanPhoneNumber As String

    Dim formattedPhoneNumber As New System.Text.StringBuilder



    cleanPhoneNumber = StripNonNumericCharacters(phoneNumber)



    If cleanPhoneNumber.Length = 0 Then

        Return String.Empty

    Else

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("(")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(0))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(1))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(2))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(") ")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(3))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(4))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(5))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("-")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(6))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(7))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(8))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(9))

        Return formattedPhoneNumber.ToString

    End If



End Function

Certainly braindead, and still worthy of WTF - unless input is guaranteed to be 0 or 9+ numeric characters.

Buddy:

Horrendous.

What is neat is that you can strip away, Picasso-style, and get at the essence of ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting.

Public Shared Function ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting(ByVal phoneNumber As String) As String

        Dim cleanPhoneNumber As String

        Dim formattedPhoneNumber As New System.Text.StringBuilder

        'Dim i As Integer



                'If phoneNumber Is Nothing Then

                        'Return String.Empty

                'End If



        cleanPhoneNumber = StripNonNumericCharacters(phoneNumber)



        If cleanPhoneNumber.Length = 0 Then

            Return String.Empty

        Else



            'For i = 0 To 12



                'Select Case i

                    'Case 0

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("(")

                    'Case 1

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(0))

                    'Case 2

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(1))

                    'Case 3

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(2))

                    'Case 4

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(") ")

                    'Case 5

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(3))

                    'Case 6

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(4))

                    'Case 7

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(5))

                    'Case 8

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("-")

                    'Case 9

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(6))

                    'Case 10

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(7))

                    'Case 11

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(8))

                    'Case 12

                        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(9))



                'End Select



            'Next



            Return formattedPhoneNumber.ToString



        End If



    End Function

Or with lines stripped out:

Public Shared Function ApplyPhoneNumberFormatting(ByVal phoneNumber As String) As String



    Dim cleanPhoneNumber As String

    Dim formattedPhoneNumber As New System.Text.StringBuilder



    cleanPhoneNumber = StripNonNumericCharacters(phoneNumber)



    If cleanPhoneNumber.Length = 0 Then

        Return String.Empty

    Else

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("(")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(0))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(1))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(2))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(") ")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(3))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(4))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(5))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append("-")

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(6))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(7))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(8))

        formattedPhoneNumber.Append(cleanPhoneNumber.Chars(9))

        Return formattedPhoneNumber.ToString

    End If



End Function

Certainly braindead, and still worthy of WTF - unless input is guaranteed to be 0 or 9+ numeric characters.

Ironic that in a post about removing unnecessary lines, you have an if-return-else statement.