CaseFormat to detect format of a string (value)

It’s nice to have a function to test whether a particular string is in which case format.

In a tool application, a string will provided by external code. And if the value matches some known case format, It will then be normalised to a standard format. e.g. if input matches UPPER_UNDERSCORE and LOWER_UNDERSCORE will both converted to LOWER_CAMEL.

Some ideas illustrated as below:

/**
 * Tests which CaseFormat the <code>value</code> is.
 *
 * @param value
 * @return the case format for the value if found. <code>null</code> if no matches found.
 */
@Nullable
public static CaseFormat test(@Nonnull String value) {
    // in worst case, may need to enumerate all format
    // some quick test, like first detect underscore then check cases etc may help.
    return CaseFormat.Test;
}

/**
 * Tests whether <code>value</code> is in this case format.
 *
 * @param value
 * @return <code>true</code> if <code>value</code> is matching case format.
 */
abstract boolean matches(@Nonnull String value);

[chefhoobajoob]

+5

I don’t really care what the current case format for a given incoming string is, but whatever it is, I want to convert it to a specific case format. I’m not sure what systems could make use of finding out what format a string currently is in, but I would think that there’s a not-small class of software that would be interested in taking in a string from some external, possibly untrusted, source and converting it to a specific case format.

We have a system that uses a case format for different fields on a variety of data for a variety of scenarios (usually it’s display scenarios we care about), and we are not always in control of the input.

The alternative is to run through a bunch of guesses on the source format and see which conversion to a target format yields an identical string. Only then can the conversion be made.

[dopsun]

+1 This will help.