- providing a good toString implementation makes your class much more pleasant to use
- When practical, the toString method should return all of the interesting information contained in the object
- Whether or not you decide to specify the format, you should clearly document your intentions
/**
* Returns the string representation of this phone number.
* The string consists of fourteen characters whose format
* is "(XXX) YYY-ZZZZ", where XXX is the area code, YYY is
* the prefix, and ZZZZ is the line number. (Each of the
* capital letters represents a single decimal digit.)
*
* If any of the three parts of this phone number is too small
* to fill up its field, the field is padded with leading zeros.
* For example, if the value of the line number is 123, the last * four characters of the string representation will be "0123". *
* Note that there is a single space separating the closing
* parenthesis after the area code from the first digit of the * prefix.
*/
@Override public String toString() {
return String.format("(%03d) %03d-%04d",
areaCode, prefix, lineNumber);
}
- provide programmatic access to all of the information contained in the value returned by toString