boolean
parameter.
It's almost always bad practice to add a boolean
parameter to a public method (part of an API) if that method is not a setter.
When reading code using such a method, it can be difficult to decipher what the boolean
stands for without looking at
the source or documentation.
This problem is also known as the boolean trap.
The boolean
parameter can often be replaced with an enum
.
Example:
// Warning: it's hard to understand what the
// boolean parameters mean when looking at
// a call to this method
public boolean setPermission(File f,
int access,
boolean enable,
boolean ownerOnly) {
// ...
}
Use the Only report methods with multiple boolean parameters option to warn only when a method contains more than one boolean parameter.