condensing code

[Melinda Wilson]

Can any part of this code sample be furthered condensed?
**part one

if (strState == "AR" || stState == "IA" || strState == "NE" )
{
    intMinAge = 14;
}
else if 
    (strState == "IL" || stState == "CO" || strState == "KY")
{
    intMinAge = 15;
}
else if 
    (strState == "MO" || stState == "IL" || strState == "TN" || strState == "KS")
{
    intMinAge = 16;
} 

**part two

if ( (strState == "AR" || stState == "IA" || strState == "NE") && intAge == intMinAge)
{
    blnYouthDriver = true;
}
else if ( (strState == "IL" || stState == "CO" || strState == "KY") && intAge == intMinAge)
{
    blnYouthDriver = true;
} 
else if
    ( (strState == "MO" || stState == "IL" || strState == "TN" || strState == "KS") && 
      intAge == intMinAge)
{
    blnYouthDriver = true;
}

Thank you for any suggestions
[ May 06, 2002: Message edited by: Dirk Schreckmann ]

[Jessica Sant]

... this looks an awful lot like a homework assignment ...

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Melinda Wilson:
Can any part of this code sample be furthered condensed?

Yes. Basically you are having a mapping between Strings and ints.

Map youthDriverAges = ...
youthDriverAges.put("AR", new Integer(14));

Than you can easily use the Map to lookup ages for a specific String. Take a look at java.util.Map and its implementations.

[Melinda Wilson]

Originally posted by Jessica Sant:
... this looks an awful lot like a homework assignment ...

No it is not a homework assignment.
[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Melinda Wilson ]

[Jim Yingst]

Part II has a lot of redundancy. It seems to reduce to

  if (stateIsListedInPartI && intAge == intMinAge)
    blnYouthDriver = true;

This could probably be accomplished as:

  if (intMinAge > 0 && intAge == intMinAge)
    blnYouthDriver = true;

For part I, I'd probably list all the states in a file, and read the file into a Map of some sort which allowed me to look up the min age for a given state, without a bunch of if/else if clauses. The Properties class would be a simple way to do this. It's probably not worth the trouble for the code as it is now - but if you plan to add the remaining states, or if you need to have other state-dependant information, I'd try to put it in a separate file where it's easy to read and update if necessary.

[John Smith]

code:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if (strState == "AR" || stState == "IA" || strState == "NE" ){ intMinAge = 14;}else if (strState == "IL" || stState == "CO" || strState == "KY"){ intMinAge = 15;}else if (strState == "MO" || stState == "IL" || strState == "TN" || strState == "KS"){ intMinAge = 16;}

Also, it is not a good idea to test the equivalence of Strings with the "==" operators. Use the str1.equals(str2) instead.