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Wrappers and Helpers

For some list operations it is useful to divide the labor into two methods. For example, to print a list backwards in the conventional list format, (3, 2, 1) we can use the printBackwards method to print 3, 2, but we need a separate method to print the parentheses and the first node. We'll call it printBackwardNicely.

    public static void printBackwardNicely (Node list) {
        System.out.print ("(");

        if (list != null) {
            Node head = list;
            Node tail = list.next;
            printBackward (tail);
            System.out.print (head);
        }
        System.out.println (")");
    }

Again, it is a good idea to check methods like this to see if they work with special cases like an empty list or a singleton.

Elsewhere in the program, when we use this method, we will invoke printBackwardNicely directly and it will invoke printBackward on our behalf. In that sense, printBackwardNicely acts as a wrapper, and it uses printBackward as a helper.



Last Update: 2011-01-24