Reusable lookup tables

[Ronald Verbeek]

I have to deal with several lookup tables like for example:
Quality SpecificWeight Hardness TearStrength

So I would create a Quality Class to store the values for a single
record.

I know it would be possible to use a HashMap<String, Qualityand fill it
with the appropriate data. All examples I find use the main method for
this.

However I need to reuse the same lookup tables for different
applications. So my idea is to put this lookup tables in a library jar
file that can be shared by this applications.

What is the best approach?

Regards,

Ronald.

[Robert Larsen]

Ronald Verbeek wrote:

What is the best approach?

Regards,

Ronald.

That depends. How does a Quality object look like ?
You could probably use a property file instead of hardcoding the table.

java.util.Property can read its content using an InputStream.

Best,
Robert

[Ronald Verbeek]

Op Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:55:14 +0200, schreef Robert Larsen:

Ronald Verbeek wrote:

>What is the best approach?

Regards,

Ronald.

That depends. How does a Quality object look like ? You could probably
use a property file instead of hardcoding the table.

java.util.Property can read its content using an InputStream.

Best,
Robert

Typical data lookup objects like the Quality object have a String key and
several double values and sometimes String values and the appropriate get
methods to retrieve the values.

I already found that it is possible and workable to use a static
initializer block to initialize the HashMap or TreeMap (I want some
lookups sorted for use in a JComboBox). But if someone can suggest a
better approach it is still much appreciated.

Regards,

Ronald.