A new code review item: Initializers in Alphabetical Order

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I’ve been using MZTools Visual Studio add-in for a few years. The original reason I acquired it was because of it’s sorting of code ability:

  • Sorting a collection of lines
  • Sorting the elements in a class by type and then alphabetical.

I had gotten frustrated by manual re-organizing  of code and fighting the random dropping of code where it fell into the file. I love the use of initializers – it keeps code cleaner and easier to read (visually chunking), but with rapid evolution of code, we can often end up with something like:

   1: deposit.CreditCard.AccountHolder = new AccountHolderDetail()
   2: {
   3:     AddressLine1 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine1),
   4:     AddressLine2 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine2),
   5:     Company = GetString(CreditCardCompany),
   6:     FirstName = GetString(CreditCardFirstName),                   
   7:     LastName = GetString(CreditCardLastName),                        
   8:     PostalCode = GetString(CreditCardPostalCode),
   9:     AddressLine3 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine3),
  10:     City = GetString(CreditCardCity),
  11:     NumericCountryIsoCode = UnneededCallForIso(GetGuid(CreditCardCountryId)),
  12:     MiddleName = GetString(CreditCardMiddleName),
  13:     StateProvince = GetString(CreditCardStateProvinceId)
  14: };

If you are cross-checking two chunks of code, the random sequence becomes a pain and thus decreases code quality.  With two clicks the code is transformed into alphabetical order and the code is a lot easier to review or cross-checking.

 

So properly reviewed code would be:

   1: deposit.CreditCard.AccountHolder = new AccountHolderDetail()
   2: {
   3:     AddressLine1 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine1),
   4:     AddressLine2 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine2),
   5:     AddressLine3 = GetString(CreditCardAddressLine3),
   6:     City = GetString(CreditCardCity),
   7:     Company = GetString(CreditCardCompany),
   8:     FirstName = GetString(CreditCardFirstName),                   
   9:     LastName = GetString(CreditCardLastName),                    
  10:     MiddleName = GetString(CreditCardMiddleName),
  11:     NumericCountryIsoCode = UnneededCallForIso(GetGuid(CreditCardCountryId)),
  12:     PostalCode = GetString(CreditCardPostalCode),
  13:     StateProvince = GetString(CreditCardStateProvinceId)
  14: };

I would advocate that this be made a part of your regular code review standards, that is:

  • Initializers must be used when appropriate (most of the add-in tools will suggest/prompt you to do so and automatically refactor for you).
  • Initializers are in alphabetical order

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