Creating a Utilities Class?

Question

I'm very new to OOP and am trying my hardest to keep things strictly class based, while using good coding principles.

I'm a fair ways into my project now and I have a lot of general use methods I want to put into an utilities class. Is there a best way to create a utilities class?

public class Utilities {     int test;      public Utilities()     {     }      public int sum(int number1, int number2)     {         test = number1 + number2;     }     return test; } 

After creating this Utilities class, do I just create an Utilities object, and run the methods of my choosing? Do I have this Utilities class idea correct?

Answer 1

You should make it a static class, like this:

public static class Utilities {     public static int Sum(int number1, int number2) {         return number1 + number2;     } }  int three = Utilities.Sum(1, 2); 

The class should (usually) not have any fields or properties. (Unless you want to share a single instance of some object across your code, in which case you can make a static read-only property.

Answer 2

If you are working with .NET 3.0 or above, you should look into extension methods. They allow you to write a static function that will act against a particular type, like Int32, while seeming to be a method on that object. So then you could have: int result = 1.Add(2);.

Try this out; it might just show you another way. ;)

C# Tutorial - Extension Methods