I ran across a posting by Robert Martin on the Coding Dojo and I admit to being intrigued.  I'm running a low-priority thread, in the back of my mind, looking for good examples of kata to use in a coding dojo.

Here's one that I ran across in a programming newsgroup.

You have an app that needs to be able to read a CSV file.  The first line of the file specifies the data types of the fields in the remaining lines.  The data type line is in the format

[fieldname:typename],[fieldname:typename],...,[fieldname:typename]

For example:
[name:string],[zipcode:int],[orderdate:date],[ordervalue:decimal]

you must use a decorator pattern.  The decorator must be constructed using a builder pattern that consumes the data type line.  Output is a file in XML format

Any row that doesn't match the specification will not produce an output line.  The output will pick up with the next line.  The file, when done, must be well-formed.

Of course, with a kata, the only thing produced at the start is the set of unit tests (and perhaps, in the interest of time, the frame of the classes from a model).  The rest is up to the participants.

Comments are welcome, of course.