How to reduce cyclomatic complexity?

Question

I\'m working on a class which sends a RequestDTO to a Web Service. I need to validate the request before it is sent.

The request can be sent from 3 different places and

Answer 1

An easy way is to promote the check into a separate method:

private String getAppendString(String value, String appendString) {
    if (value == null || value.isEmpty()) {
        return "";
    }
    return appendString;
}

And then you can use this method instead of the if blocks:

sb.append(getAppendString(request.getStreet(), "street,");

This will reduce complexity from 28 down to 3. Always remember: high complexity counts are an indication that a method is trying to do too much. Complexity can be dealt with by dividing the problem into smaller pieces, like we did here.

Answer 2

Another approach would be to enforce that contract in the Request object itself. If a field is required or can't be null, say so when the Request is created.

Create the Request in such a way that it's 100% valid and ready to go when the constructor exists.

I'd also create that String version in the Request toString() method. It should know how to render itself.