What is better: public static Class with static methods or public Class with static methods?

Question

Regarding class public class declaration, please look at these two pieces of code:

public class Helper
{
    public static void CallMeganFox(string phoneNumber)
    { //...

and

public static class Helper
{
    public static void CallMeganFox(string phoneNumber)
    { //...

What is better to use and why?

possible duplicate of [Deciding to make a C# class static](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7660094/deciding-to-make-a-c-sharp-class-static) — Cody Gray - on strike, Jan 14 '12 at 16:18

Jon · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-14T15:38:57.197

It's "better" in theory to make it explicit that this class is not supposed to be instantiated by making it static (second option), because it communicates intent¹.

However in such a simple case, from a practical perspective there will be exactly zero difference². Noone's going to look at this class and try to instantiate it.

¹ As Cody Gray points out, it can also help you catch mistakes earlier (e.g. forgetting to make a helper method static). While that viewpoint certainly has merit, again the practical difference is going to be negligible: the compiler would complain as soon as you tried to call the method statically in any case.

² Actually, this is not always true. For example, the C# compiler will not let you define extension methods in a non-static class -- not because it cannot, but because it wants to nudge you towards a "best practice".

Agreed; not only does it communicate intent, it prevents mistakes (such as forgetting to declare a newly-added function `static`). — Cody Gray - on strike, Jan 14 '12 at 15:34

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

1

static class cannot have non-static methods. If that's what you want - then use it.

More information can be found in this SO question and answers.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

Community

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answered Jan 14 '12 at 15:32

Sergey Kudriavtsev

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What is better: public static Class with static methods or public Class with static methods?

2 Answers2