java - Parameter class of headers?

Question

I have a design question: I want to write to a CSV file some data.

I have separate class to write data to CSV.

My problem is with the data and how to represent it:

• This data is composed of two lines of constant headers (main and secondary) and data lines that their values is changing.
• A line of headers is just a coma separated line of string values, my question is how to save these values?

For the parameter lines I created a parameters class that has a method: getLine.

For example:

Electrical params, , , Environment params
Voltage, Current, Resistance, Temperature, Humidity
2.3, 1.2, 0.5, 25c, 84%

The empty cells are for the CSV to look good. My questions is about the first two lines: What is the recommended way to treat the headers?

Should I create a headers class? Two classes (One for main and one for secondary)? Other?

Answer 1

Depends on how complex of a problem you are trying to solve. If you just need to keep track of a list of headers, then just keep it as a list of strings.

If you want a hierarchy of headers maybe a Header class and Subheader class?

public class Header {
  public String getName() {...}
  public ArrayList<Subheader> getSubheaders() {...}
  public int[] getColumnRange() {...}
}

public class Subheader {
  public String getName() {...}
  public int getColumn() {...}
}