Truncating long strings when saving inventory items to database

Question

To test incoming data for string values that are too large for the "database" (MS Access), I could do this:

private void SaveToMSAccess(InventoryItem invItem, string dbContext)
{
    invItem = TruncateVerboseStringMembers(invItem);
    . . .
}

private InventoryItem TruncateVerboseStringMembers(InventoryItem invItem)
{
    const int DESC_MAX_LEN = 35;
    const int VENDOR_ID_MAX_LEN = 10;
    const int VENDOR_ITEM_MAX_LEN = 12;
    if (invItem.Description.Trim().Length > DESC_MAX_LEN)
    {
        invItem.Description = invItem.Description.Substring(0, DESC_MAX_LEN);
    }
    if (invItem.vendor_id.Trim().Length > VENDOR_ID_MAX_LEN)
    {
        invItem.vendor_id = invItem.vendor_id.Substring(0, VENDOR_ID_MAX_LEN);
    }
    if (invItem.vendor_item.Trim().Length > VENDOR_ITEM_MAX_LEN)
    {
        invItem.vendor_item = invItem.vendor_item.Substring(0, VENDOR_ITEM_MAX_LEN);
    }
    return invItem;
}

...where TruncateVerboseStringMembers() is always called, even though normally all conditions will fail (strings will not be too long), or I could do it like this:

const int DESC_MAX_LEN = 35;
const int VENDOR_ID_MAX_LEN = 10;
const int VENDOR_ITEM_MAX_LEN = 12;

private void SaveToMSAccess(InventoryItem invItem, string dbContext)
{
    if ((invItem.Description.Trim().Length > DESC_MAX_LEN) ||
        (invItem.vendor_id.Trim().Length > VENDOR_ID_MAX_LEN) ||
        (invItem.vendor_item.Trim().Length > VENDOR_ITEM_MAX_LEN))
    {
        invItem = TruncateVerboseStringMembers(invItem);
    }
    . . .
}

private InventoryItem TruncateVerboseStringMembers(InventoryItem invItem)
{
    if (invItem.Description.Trim().Length > DESC_MAX_LEN)
    {
        . . .

...where TruncateVerboseStringMembers() is only called when it needs to swing into action.

Or something fancier, where, if any strings are too long, I pass an array of bool to TruncateVerboseStringMembers().

Which is preferred?

Answer 1

Making duplicate testing just to avoid a method call doesn't make much sense. Method calls are not that expensive. On the contrary, they can help make the code cleaner.

You can make a method that helps you clean up the strings, just pass in how long each string may be. I think that maked the code as DRY as possible:

private string TruncateString(string value, int maxLen) {
  value = value.Trim();
  if (value.Length > maxLen) {
    value = value.Substring(0, maxLen);
  }
  return value;
}

private InventoryItem TruncateVerboseStringMembers(InventoryItem invItem) {
  invItem.Description = TruncateString(invItem.Description, 35);
  invItem.vendor_id = TruncateString(invItem.vendor_id, 10);
  invItem.vendor_item = TruncateString(invItem.vendor_item, 12);
  return invItem;
}

This will give you the overhead of always calling the method for each string and always assigning the reference back, but those are very cheap operations. Compared to any database call, it's negligible.

If there is nothing in the string to trim, and nothing to truncate, you will actually be putting back the original string reference in the property, so there are no extra strings created in the usual case.