TracksApp/tracks

Feature Envy occurs when a code fragment references another object more often than it references itself, or when several clients do the same series of manipulations on a particular type of object.

Feature Envy reduces the code's ability to communicate intent: code that "belongs" on one class but which is located in another can be hard to find, and may upset the "System of Names" in the host class.

Feature Envy also affects the design's flexibility: A code fragment that is in the wrong class creates couplings that may not be natural within the application's domain, and creates a loss of cohesion in the unwilling host class.

Feature Envy often arises because it must manipulate other objects (usually its arguments) to get them into a useful form, and one force preventing them (the arguments) doing this themselves is that the common knowledge lives outside the arguments, or the arguments are of too basic a type to justify extending that type. Therefore there must be something which 'knows' about the contents or purposes of the arguments. That thing would have to be more than just a basic type, because the basic types are either containers which don't know about their contents, or they are single objects which can't capture their relationship with their fellows of the same type. So, this thing with the extra knowledge should be reified into a class, and the utility method will most likely belong there.

Example

Running Reek on:

class Warehouse
  def sale_price(item)
    (item.price - item.rebate) * @vat
  end
end

would report:

Warehouse#total_price refers to item more than self (FeatureEnvy)

since this:

(item.price - item.rebate)

belongs to the Item class, not the Warehouse.

Classes should not assume that instance variables are set or present outside of the current class definition.

Good:

class Foo
  def initialize
    @bar = :foo
  end

  def foo?
    @bar == :foo
  end
end

Good as well:

class Foo
  def foo?
    bar == :foo
  end

  def bar
    @bar ||= :foo
  end
end

Bad:

class Foo
  def go_foo!
    @bar = :foo
  end

  def foo?
    @bar == :foo
  end
end

Example

Running Reek on:

class Dummy
  def test
    @ivar
  end
end

would report:

[1]:InstanceVariableAssumption: Dummy assumes too much for instance variable @ivar

Note that this example would trigger this smell warning as well:

class Parent
  def initialize(omg)
    @omg = omg
  end
end

class Child < Parent
  def foo
    @omg
  end
end

The way to address the smell warning is that you should create an attr_reader to use @omg in the subclass and not access @omg directly like this:

class Parent
  attr_reader :omg

  def initialize(omg)
    @omg = omg
  end
end

class Child < Parent
  def foo
    omg
  end
end

Directly accessing instance variables is considered a smell because it breaks encapsulation and makes it harder to reason about code.

If you don't want to expose those methods as public API just make them private like this:

class Parent
  def initialize(omg)
    @omg = omg
  end

  private
  attr_reader :omg
end

class Child < Parent
  def foo
    omg
  end
end

Current Support in Reek

An instance variable must:

• be set in the constructor
• or be accessed through a method with lazy initialization / memoization.

If not, Instance Variable Assumption will be reported.

Classes and modules are the units of reuse and release. It is therefore considered good practice to annotate every class and module with a brief comment outlining its responsibilities.

Example

Given

class Dummy
  # Do things...
end

Reek would emit the following warning:

test.rb -- 1 warning:
  [1]:Dummy has no descriptive comment (IrresponsibleModule)

Fixing this is simple - just an explaining comment:

# The Dummy class is responsible for ...
class Dummy
  # Do things...
end

A Utility Function is any instance method that has no dependency on the state of the instance.

A Utility Function is any instance method that has no dependency on the state of the instance.

This cop is designed to help upgrade to Ruby 3.0. It will add the comment # frozen_string_literal: true to the top of files to enable frozen string literals. Frozen string literals may be default in Ruby 3.0. The comment will be added below a shebang and encoding comment. The frozen string literal comment is only valid in Ruby 2.3+.

Example: EnforcedStyle: when_needed (default)

# The `when_needed` style will add the frozen string literal comment
# to files only when the `TargetRubyVersion` is set to 2.3+.
# bad
module Foo
  # ...
end

# good
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Foo
  # ...
end

Example: EnforcedStyle: always

# The `always` style will always add the frozen string literal comment
# to a file, regardless of the Ruby version or if `freeze` or `<<` are
# called on a string literal.
# bad
module Bar
  # ...
end

# good
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Bar
  # ...
end

Example: EnforcedStyle: never

# The `never` will enforce that the frozen string literal comment does
# not exist in a file.
# bad
# frozen_string_literal: true

module Baz
  # ...
end

# good
module Baz
  # ...
end

This cop enforces the consistent usage of %-literal delimiters.

Specify the 'default' key to set all preferred delimiters at once. You can continue to specify individual preferred delimiters to override the default.

Example:

# Style/PercentLiteralDelimiters:
#   PreferredDelimiters:
#     default: '[]'
#     '%i':    '()'

# good
%w[alpha beta] + %i(gamma delta)

# bad
%W(alpha #{beta})

# bad
%I(alpha beta)

This cop enforces the consistent usage of %-literal delimiters.

Specify the 'default' key to set all preferred delimiters at once. You can continue to specify individual preferred delimiters to override the default.

Example:

# Style/PercentLiteralDelimiters:
#   PreferredDelimiters:
#     default: '[]'
#     '%i':    '()'

# good
%w[alpha beta] + %i(gamma delta)

# bad
%W(alpha #{beta})

# bad
%I(alpha beta)