Simplifying my code

Question

So I had to ensure that input that was passed could only contain characters A-Z and the symbol $.

The input was a String variable so I ran the .toCharArray method to determine which characters were passed in the input. I then ran Character.isLetter method to make sure it was only letters and the != $ method to state that only that symbol could be passed.

My code was successful however, it took me longer than I expected and I included some methods that weren't really taught in the course yet ( I read external forums/articles to get this).

I would like to know (assuming that there is), what would be the simplified version of the code I ran?

I do not want to get in the habit of writing convoluted code to get a basic idea out.

Order.java

public class Order {
    private String itemName;
    private int priceInCents;
    private String discountCode;

    public Order(String itemName, int priceInCents) {
        this.itemName = itemName;
        this.priceInCents = priceInCents;
    }

    public String getItemName() {
        return itemName;
    }

    public int getPriceInCents() {
        return priceInCents;
    }

    public String getDiscountCode() {
        return discountCode;
    }

    public void applyDiscountCode(String discountCode) {
        this.discountCode = discountCode;
        this.discountCode = normalizeDiscountCode("discountCode");
    }

    private String normalizeDiscountCode (String applyDiscountCode) {

        char[] chars = discountCode.toCharArray();

        for (char c : chars) {
            if (!Character.isLetter(c) && c != '$') {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException ("Invalid discount code");
            }
        }
        this.discountCode = discountCode.toUpperCase();
        return discountCode;
    }


}

Example.java

public class Example {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // This is here just for example use cases.

    Order order = new Order(
            "Yoda PEZ Dispenser",
            600);

    // These are valid.  They are letters and the $ character only
    order.applyDiscountCode("abc");
    order.getDiscountCode(); // ABC

    order.applyDiscountCode("$ale");
    order.getDiscountCode(); // $ALE


    try {
      // This will throw an exception because it contains numbers
      order.applyDiscountCode("ABC123");
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException iae) {
      System.out.println(iae.getMessage());  // Prints "Invalid discount code"
    }
    try {
      // This will throw as well, because it contains a symbol.
      order.applyDiscountCode("w@w");
    }catch (IllegalArgumentException iae) {
      System.out.println(iae.getMessage());  // Prints "Invalid discount code"
    }

  }
}

Answer 1 · 2017-03-27T15:40:35Z

March 27, 2017 3:40pm

i think a fairly standard answer is:

    public void applyDiscountCode(String discountCode) {
        this.discountCode = normalizeDiscountCode(discountCode);
    }

    private String normalizeDiscountCode (String discountCode) {
        for (char c : discountCode.toCharArray()) {
            if (!Character.isLetter(c) && c != '$') {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException ("Invalid discount code");
            }
        }
        return discountCode.toUpperCase();
    }

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Jean Malan

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Simplifying my code

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