Please critique my class

Question

I've taken a few school classes along time ago on and to be honest i never really understood the concept of classes. I recently "got back on the horse" and have been trying to find some real world application for creating a class.

you may have seen that I'm trying to parse a lot of family tree data that is in an very old and antiquated format called gedcom

I created a Gedcom Reader class to read in the file , process it and make it available as two lists that contain the data that i found necessary to use

More importantly to me is i created a class to do it so I would very much like to get the experts here to tell me what i did right and what i could have done better ( I wont say wrong because the thing works and that's good enough for me)

Class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;

namespace GedcomReader
{

    class Gedcom
    {
        private string GedcomText = "";


        public struct INDI
        {
            public string ID;
            public string Name;
            public string Sex;
            public string BDay;
            public bool Dead;
        }
        public struct FAM
        {
            public string FamID;
            public string Type;
            public string IndiID;
        }

        public List<INDI> Individuals = new List<INDI>();
        public List<FAM> Families = new List<FAM>();


        public Gedcom(string fileName)
        {
            using (StreamReader SR = new StreamReader(fileName))
            {
                GedcomText = SR.ReadToEnd();
            }
            ReadGedcom();

        }

        private void ReadGedcom()
        {
            string[] Nodes = GedcomText.Replace("0 @", "\u0646").Split('\u0646');
            foreach (string Node in Nodes)
            {
                string[] SubNode = Node.Replace("\r\n", "\r").Split('\r');
                if (SubNode[0].Contains("INDI"))
                {
                    Individuals.Add(ExtractINDI(SubNode));

                }
                else if (SubNode[0].Contains("FAM"))
                {
                    Families.Add(ExtractFAM(SubNode));
                }
            }
        }

        private FAM ExtractFAM(string[] Node)
        {
            string sFID = Node[0].Replace("@ FAM", "");
            string sID = "";
            string sType = "";
            foreach (string Line in Node)
            {
                // If node is HUSB
                if (Line.Contains("1 HUSB "))
                {
                    sType = "PAR";
                    sID = Line.Replace("1 HUSB ", "").Replace("@", "").Trim();
                }
                //If node for Wife
                else if (Line.Contains("1 WIFE "))
                {
                    sType = "PAR";
                    sID = Line.Replace("1 WIFE ", "").Replace("@", "").Trim();
                }
                //if node for multi children
                else if (Line.Contains("1 CHIL "))
                {
                    sType = "CHIL";
                    sID = Line.Replace("1 CHIL ", "").Replace("@", "");
                }
            }
            FAM Fam = new FAM();
            Fam.FamID = sFID;
            Fam.Type = sType;
            Fam.IndiID = sID;

            return Fam;
        }
        private INDI ExtractINDI(string[] Node)
        {

            //If a individual is found
            INDI I = new INDI();
            if (Node[0].Contains("INDI"))
            {
                //Create new Structure

                //Add the ID number and remove extra formating
                I.ID = Node[0].Replace("@", "").Replace(" INDI", "").Trim();
                //Find the name remove extra formating for last name
                I.Name = Node[FindIndexinArray(Node, "NAME")].Replace("1 NAME", "").Replace("/", "").Trim();
                //Find Sex and remove extra formating
                I.Sex = Node[FindIndexinArray(Node, "SEX")].Replace("1 SEX ", "").Trim();

                //Deterine if there is a brithday -1 means no
                if (FindIndexinArray(Node, "1 BIRT ") != -1)
                {
                    // add birthday to Struct 
                    I.BDay = Node[FindIndexinArray(Node, "1 BIRT ") + 1].Replace("2 DATE ", "").Trim();
                }

                // deterimin if there is a death tag will return -1 if not found
                if (FindIndexinArray(Node, "1 DEAT ") != -1)
                {
                    //convert Y or N to true or false ( defaults to False so no need to change unless Y is found.
                    if (Node[FindIndexinArray(Node, "1 DEAT ")].Replace("1 DEAT ", "").Trim() == "Y")
                    {
                        //set death
                        I.Dead = true;
                    }
                }

            }
            return I;
        }
        private int FindIndexinArray(string[] Arr, string search)
        {
            int Val = -1;
            for (int i = 0; i < Arr.Length; i++)
            {
                if (Arr[i].Contains(search))
                {
                    Val = i;
                }
            }
            return Val;
        }
    }
}

Implementation:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using GedcomReader;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string path = @"C:\mostrecent.ged";
            string outpath = @"C:\gedcom.txt";
            Gedcom GD = new Gedcom(path);

            GraphvizWriter GVW = new GraphvizWriter("Family Tree");
            foreach(Gedcom.INDI I in GD.Individuals)
            {
                string color = "pink";
                if (I.Sex == "M")
                {
                    color = "blue";
                }
                GVW.ListNode(I.ID, I.Name, "filled", color, "circle");

                if (I.ID == "ind23800")
                {MessageBox.Show("stop");}
                //"ind23800" [ label="Sarah Mandley",shape="circle",style="filled",color="pink" ];
            }
            foreach (Gedcom.FAM F in GD.Families)
            {

                if (F.Type == "par")
                {
                    GVW.ConnNode(F.FamID, F.IndiID);
                }
                else if (F.Type =="chil")
                {
                    GVW.ConnNode(F.IndiID, F.FamID);
                }
            }
           string x =  GVW.SB.ToString();
            GVW.SaveFile(outpath);
            MessageBox.Show("done");
        }
    }

I am particularly interested in if anything could be done about the structures i don't know if how i use them in the implementation is the greatest but again it works

Thanks alot

Answer 1

I suggest you check this place out: http://refactormycode.com/.

For some quick things, your naming is the biggest thing I would start to change. No need to use ALL-CAPS or abbreviated terms.

Also, FxCop will help with a lot of suggested changes. For example, FindIndexinArray would be named FindIndexInArray.

EDIT:

I don't know if this is a bug in your code or by-design, but in FindIndexinArray, you don't break from your loop once you find a match. Do you want the first (break) or last (no break) match in the array?

Answer 2

It might be more readable. It's hard to read and understand.

You may study SOLID principles (http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.PrinciplesOfOod)

Robert C. Martin gave good presentation on Oredev 2008 about clean code (http://www.oredev.org/topmenu/video/agile/robertcmartincleancodeiiifunctions.4.5a2d30d411ee6ffd2888000779.html)

Some recomended books to read about code readability:

• Kent Beck "Implemetation patterns"

• Robert C Martin "Clean Code" Robert C

• Martin "Agile Principles, Patterns and Practices in C#"

Answer 3

Quick thoughts:

• Nested types should not be visible.
• ValueTypes (structs) should be immutable.
• Fields (class variables) should not be public. Expose them via properties instead.
• Check passed arguments for invalid values, like null.