Does This Belong In a Dictionary?

[Jere Kahanpaa]

beno <zope at thewebsons.com> wrote:
> Hi;
> I'm writing UML for a shopping cart. Some of the methods have huge amounts 
> of variables passed back and forth. For example, the following:

>
cueForShipment(customerID:int;basketID:int,firstName:string,middleInitial:string,lastName:string,address1:string,address2:string,city:string,state:string,zip:string,shipFirstName='':string,shipLastName='':string,shipaddress1='':string,shipAddress2='':stri
ng,shipCity='':string,shipState='':string,shipZip='':string,country:string;shipCountry='':string,wrapGift:bool)

> Should I simply pack everything but the IDs into a dictionary?

A short answer: Yes, but even better solutions exist...

A longer one: I'd use a simple class for this.

class CustomerInfo:
   def __init__(self): # Add arguments if preferred
      self.firstName = None
      self.shipState = ''
      self.shipZip = ''  # etc.
   # Maybe other methods, such as PrintShippingLabel ? 

customer = CustomerInfo()
customer.firstName = 'Jere'  # ect.

and use it as a parameter:

cueForShipment(basketID,customer)

Jere Kahanpää
-- 
It's hard to think outside the box when you ARE the box.
                            - unknown, alt.religion.kibology