Refactor Question

[Cata Alex]

Hi!
Can anyone help me redesign this part of code or give me some tips? I want it to work the same but to be much easier to read.

/** Adds the specified covered requirements to this description. This method
   *  should be called only once for each description object. This method
   *  cannot be used to replace any previously added requirements!
   *
   *  @param reqs the covered requirements to be set. {@code null} items as
   *              well as empty items in the array are ignored. May be {@code
   *              null} in case the description shall have no covered
   *              requirements.
   */
  private void setCoveredRequirements ( String[] reqs )
  {
    // add covered requirements, if available
    if ((coveredRequirements == null) && (reqs != null) && (reqs.length > 0))
    {
      int i, j, k;

      // copy & trim requirements, replace null requirements by empty requirements
      coveredRequirements = new String[reqs.length];
      for (i = 0; i < reqs.length; i++)
        coveredRequirements[i] = (reqs[i] != null) ? reqs[i].trim() : "";

      // remove empty requirements
      for (j = coveredRequirements.length, i = 0; i < j; i++)
      {
        if (coveredRequirements[i].length() == 0)
        {
          for (k = i, --j; k < j; k++)
            coveredRequirements[k] = coveredRequirements[k + 1];
        }
      }
      coveredRequirements = (j > 0) ? Arrays.copyOf(coveredRequirements, j) : null;
    }
  } 

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

How do you ensure that method is called only once? Are you recording when it is called? Are you throwing an Exception if it is called twice?
Why are you not using the clone() method of the array passed? Why not add the array elements to a List, ignoring nulls?
You ought to declare those loop variables in the loop header.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Cata Alex wrote:Can anyone help me redesign this part of code or give me some tips? I want it to work the same but to be much easier to read.

Well the best piece of advice I can give you is to use Lists (java.util.List) instead of arrays. You're writing a lot of code to do things (eg, replace null requirements by empty requirements) that is done automatically by a List class (eg, ArrayList).

Winston