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1

What's the name for a class that has only methods? There are no fields/properties. Just two methods with the ability to parse some file in two ways. I have named the class Parser, but it just doesn't seem right to have a class do only that. Or?

Should it be in a class ?

EDIT:

Dummy Example

class Parser
{
     public int parseMethod1(string file)
     {
         //parse & return
     }

     public string[] parseMethod2(string file)
     {
         //parse & return
     }
}

How could I write an interface IParser which allowed me to have a subclass only implement one of the methods?

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3  
and let me guess, those methods are static. Not every problem is a good fit for OOP, and sometimes a procedural solution is preferable. You could refer to a collection of procedures as a module. However, I think that in your case an OOP solution would be preferable – why didn't you write two subclasses that each implement a way of parsing the file, and have Parser be an interface? Without more context, all we can do is to take a wild guess. –  amon Feb 3 at 22:31
1  
Should it be in a class ? - it is in a class, isn't it? And where else could it be (in C#) –  Konrad Morawski Feb 3 at 22:34
    
Why would you want to call it a special name? –  oɔɯǝɹ Feb 3 at 22:40
    
@amon The two methods I have that parse files, have different return types. How would you do this with an interface? I mean don't you HAVE to implement all methods ? So if I wrote a subclass I would have to implement both parse methods even though I only needed one. Or am I completely confused here? –  D.Singh Feb 3 at 22:51
1  
@D.Singh How about generics (aka. type parameters)? interface Parser<T> { public T parse(string); } class SomeParser implements Parser<int> { public int parse(string file) { ... } } (sorry, I'm used to Java syntax) –  amon Feb 3 at 22:55

1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

An object-oriented design may actually be appropriate here, but both your parse methods belong in separate subclasses. You can use generics (type parameters) to achieve this. Something like:

interface IParser<T>
{
    public T parse(string);
}

class SomeParser : IParser<int>
{
    public int parse(string file)
    {
        ...
    }
}

class AnotherParser : IParser<string[]>
{
    public string[] parse(string file)
    {
        ...
    }
}
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