Workbook 4a Module 4 — Exercise 1

NameFormatter

A stateless utility class with overloaded static methods that format a person's name | Workbook p.79-80

The Exercise

Build a class called NameFormatter whose only job is to take name pieces and return a formatted name string. The class should never be instantiated — you call it like a library, the same way you call Math.sqrt(...). Make the constructor private so nobody can accidentally do new NameFormatter().

Provide three overloaded versions of format — one for the simplest case (just first and last name), one for the full case with prefix / middle / suffix, and one that takes a single full-name string and reformats it.

Three Overloads

1 format(String firstName, String lastName)

The minimum case. You only have a first and last name — no prefix, no middle initial, no suffix. Returns "LastName, FirstName".

2 format(String prefix, String firstName, String middleName, String lastName, String suffix)

The full case. All five pieces are passed in separately. Any of prefix, middleName, or suffix may be an empty string — handle that gracefully so you don't get extra spaces or stray commas in the output.

3 format(String fullName)

The parser case. The caller hands you one combined string in the form "Prefix FirstName MiddleName LastName, Suffix". Your method splits it into its pieces and returns the same standard "LastName, Prefix FirstName MiddleName, Suffix" shape.

Required Output Format

The standard shape is LastName, Prefix FirstName MiddleName, Suffix — with pieces dropped cleanly when they're missing.

prefix=Dr. first=Mel middle=B last=Johnson suffix=PhD → Johnson, Dr. Mel B, PhD

prefix= first=Mel middle=B last=Johnson suffix=PhD → Johnson, Mel B, PhD

first=Mel last=Johnson → Johnson, Mel

Watch out: If a piece is an empty string, the surrounding spaces and commas should not appear. "Johnson, , Mel ," is wrong — it leaks the missing pieces into the output.

Why Static?

NameFormatter doesn't need to remember anything between calls. It has no fields, no state, no identity — just pure input-to-output behavior. That's the textbook signature of a stateless utility.

Stateless utilities should be static classes: every method is static, the constructor is private, and you call methods directly off the class name. This is exactly how Math, Collections, and Arrays are built in the standard library.

Static classes are libraries of functions. Compare to Math.sqrt() — you don't do new Math(), you call the method directly. Same pattern here: NameFormatter.format(...).

Concepts You'll Use

Flow

1. New Maven project name: static-classes

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2. Create class NameFormatter.java

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3. Make ctor private Block instantiation

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4. Easiest overload first first + last → "Last, First"

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5. Five-arg overload handle null/empty pieces

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6. Parser overload split full-name string on space + comma

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7. Try it in Main Print a few formatted names to verify

Workbook 4a Module 4, Exercise 1, p.79-80 — NameFormatter