Utility classes.. Good or Bad?

Question

I have been reading that creating dependencies by using static classes/singletons in code, is bad form, and creates problems ie. tight coupling, and unit testing.

I have a situation where I have a group of url parsing methods that have no state associated with them, and perform operations using only the input arguments of the method. I am sure you are familiar with this kind of method.

In the past I would have proceeded to create a class and add these methods and call them directly from my code eg.

UrlParser.ParseUrl(url);

But wait a minute, that is introducing a dependency to another class. I am unsure whether these 'utility' classes are bad, as they are stateless and this minimises some of the problems with said static classes, and singletons. Could someone clarify this?

Should I be moving the methods to the calling class, that is if only the calling class will be using the method. THis may violate the 'Single Responsibilty Principle'.

Gadgetry

"I have a situation where I have a group of url parsing methods that have no state associated with them, and perform operations using only the input arguments of the method. I am sure you are familiar with this kind of method." such methods would be called pure functions – Diannediannne

Answer 1

From a theoretical design standpoint, I feel that Utility classes are something to be avoided when possible. They basically are no different than static classes (although slightly nicer, since they have no state).

From a practical standpoint, however, I do create these, and encourage their use when appropriate. Trying to avoid utility classes is often cumbersome, and leads to less maintainable code. However, I do try to encourage my developers to avoid these in public APIs when possible.

For example, in your case, I feel that UrlParser.ParseUrl(...) is probably better handled as a class. Look at System.Uri in the BCL - this handles a clean, easy to use interface for Uniform Resource Indentifiers, that works well, and maintains the actual state. I prefer this approach to a utility method that works on strings, and forcing the user to pass around a string, remember to validate it, etc.

Doubtful

Good point. System.Uri is a good example of converting a static utility method like this to an object. – Bushnell

It's also very relevant to their specific question, given their example ;) – Doubtful

A pretty bad example as System.Uri is known to be littered with problems related to original string representation and conversions to/from absolute relative paths. This is what happens on every abstraction design and API formulation, you never ever get it right out of the box, and with MSFT framework designers it takes ages to get it right and often causes more complication than with static methods that are easy and known to be functional in nature. But that's a problem with 'framework' and 'design guidelines' mania approach in general.. – Housecarl

Could someone please explain what is meant by "They basically are no different than static classes (although slightly nicer, since they have no state)." Perhaps I'm missing how a "utility" class would be declared. Based on the example it looks like a static class. What "state" is Reed referring to? – Mackey

It's usually just a static class with no fields or properties, hence no "state" that's saved, but rather just a series of methods used as utilities. – Doubtful

Answer 2

Utility classes are ok..... as long as they don't violate design principles. Use them as happily as you'd use the core framework classes.

The classes should be well named and logical. Really they aren't so much "utility" but part of an emerging framwework that the native classes don't provide.

Using things like Extension methods can be useful as well to align functionality onto the "right" class. BUT, they can be a cause of some confusion as the extensions aren't packaged with the class they extend usually, which is not ideal, but, still, can be very useful and produce cleaner code.

Embrasure

Answer 3

You could always create an interface and use that with dependency injection with instances of classes that implement that interface instead of static classes.

The question becomes, is it really worth the effort? In some systems, the answer in yes, but in others, especially smaller ones, the answer is probably no.

Wort

This is what I would suggest too. If the utility method is complex or computationally expensive, I would suggest using dependency injection to inject it as a service object of some kind. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about it. – Bushnell

The injection doesn't remove the dependency. It just make it easier to handle. – Paola

The only way to remove a dependency is to remove it. I don't see your point. – Wort

Answer 4

This really depends on the context, and on how we use it.

Utility classes, itself, is not bad. However, It will become bad if we use it the bad way. Every design pattern (especially Singleton pattern) can easily be turned into anti-pattern, same goes for Utility classes.

In software design, we need a balancing between flexibility & simplicity. If we're going to create a StringUtils which is only responsible for string-manipulation:

• Does it violate SRP (Single Responsibility Principle)? -> Nope, it's the developers that put too much responsibilities into utility classes that violate SRP.
• "It can not be injected using DI frameworks" -> Are StringUtils implementation gonna varies? Are we gonna switch its implementations at runtime? Are we gonna mock it? Of course not.

=> Utility classes, themselve, are not bad. It's the developers' fault that make it bad.

It all really depends on the context. If you're just gonna create a utility class that only contains single responsibility, and is only used privately inside a module or a layer. Then you're still good with it.

Sensation

Answer 5

I really, really try to avoid them, but who are we kidding... they creep into every system. Nevertheless, in the example given I would use a URL object which would then expose various attributes of the URL (protocol, domain, path and query-string parameters). Nearly every time I want to create a utility class of statics, I can get more value by creating an object that does this kind of work.

In a similar way I have created a lot of custom controls that have built in validation for things like percentages, currency, phone numbers and the like. Prior to doing this I had a Parser utility class that had all of these rules, but it makes it so much cleaner to just drop a control on the page that already knows the basic rules (and thus requires only business logic validation to be added).

I still keep the parser utility class and these controls hide that static class, but use it extensively (keeping all the parsing in one easy to find place). In that regard I consider it acceptable to have the utility class because it allows me to apply "Don't Repeat Yourself", while I get the benefit of instanced classes with the controls or other objects that use the utilities.

Principled

Answer 6

I agree with some of the other responses here that it is the classic singleton which maintains a single instance of a stateful object which is to be avoided and not necessarily utility classes with no state that are evil. I also agree with Reed, that if at all possible, put these utility methods in a class where it makes sense to do so and where one would logically suspect such methods would reside. I would add, that often these static utility methods might be good candidates for extension methods.

Providing

Answer 7

Utility classes used in this way are basically namespaces for what would otherwise be (pure) top-level functions.

From an architectural perspective there is no difference if you use pure top-level "global" functions or basic (*) pure static methods. Any pros or cons of one would equally apply to the other.

Static methods vs global functions

The main argument for using utility classes over global ("floating") functions is code organization, file and directory structure, and naming:

• You might already have a convention for structuring class files in directories by namespace, but you might not have a good convention for top-level functions.
• For version control (e.g. git) it might be preferable to have a separate file per function, but for other reasons it might be preferable to have them in the same file.
• Your language might have an autoload mechanism for classes, but not for functions. (I think this would mostly apply to PHP)
• You might prefer to write import Acme:::Url; Url::parse(url) over import function Acme:::parse_url; parse_url();. Or you might prefer the latter.
• You should check if your language allows passing static methods and/or top-level functions as values. Perhaps some languages only allow one but not the other.

So it largely depends on the language you use, and conventions in your project, framework or software ecosystem.

(*) You could have private or protected methods in the utility class, or even use inheritance - something you cannot do with top-level functions. But most of the time this is not what you want.

Static methods/functions vs object methods

The main benefit of object methods is that you can inject the object, and later replace it with a different implementation with different behavior. Calling a static method directly works well if you don't ever need to replace it. Typically this is the case if:

• the function is pure (no side effects, not influenced by internal or external state)
• any alternative behavior would be considered as wrong, or highly strange. E.g. 1 + 1 should always be 2. There is no reason for an alternative implementation where 1 + 1 = 3.

You may also decide that the static call is "good enough for now".

And even if you start with static methods, you can make them injectable/pluggable later. Either by using function/callable values, or by having small wrapper classes with object methods that internally call the static method.

Rag

Answer 8

They're fine as long as you design them well ( That is, you don't have to change their signature from time to time).

These utility methods do not change that often, because they do one thing only. The problem comes when you want to tight a more complex object to another. If one of them needs to change or be replaced, it will be harder to to if you have them highly coupled.

Since these utility methods won't change that often I would say that is not much problem.

I think it would be worst if you copy/paste the same utility method over and over again.

This video How to design a good API and why it matters by Joshua Bloch, explains several concepts to bear in mind when designing an API ( that would be your utility library ). Although he's a recognized Java architect the content applies to all the programming languages.

Paola

Answer 9

Use them sparingly, you want to put as much logic as you can into your classes so they dont become just data containers.

But, at the same time you can't really avoid utilites, they are required sometimes.

In this case i think it's ok.

FYI there is the system.web.httputility class which contains alot of common http utilities which you may find useful.

Hookworm