C# File Structure – Best Way to Name Files Containing Generic Classes

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In my current project I have come across the requirement to create generic classes with the same name, but different numbers of generic parameters. For example:

MyClass<T1>
MyClass<T1, T2>
MyClass<T1, T2, T3>

Given that I want all of these in the same namespace, I am confused as to how to structure and name my classes and files?

If we follow the idea that we should have classes limited to one per file and that files should be in a folder structure that represents namespace hierarchy and that the name of the file should match the name of the class, how do I deal with this situation?

What I am really asking here is what should I name the file that contains MyClass<T1>, and what should I name the file that contains MyClass<T1, T2>? I am not asking what the names of the type parameters should be.

Best Answer

MyGenericClass`1.cs
MyGenericClass`2.cs
MyGenericClass`3.cs

And so on, where the number after the backtick is the number of generic type parameters. This convention is used by Microsoft.

Alternatively, you can use something like

MyGenericCollectionClass[TKey, TValue].cs

which preserves not only the number of generic type parameters, but also their specific names. Granted, it doesn't preserve the angle brackets, but we can't have everything in life we want, can we?

Related Solutions

Namespace and Class Name Guidelines in C#

I think the single biggest thing you could do to improve your namespacing here is to remove Service from your EventService namespace. I'd also adjust the namespaces to be more like this:

Services.Events.EventService.cs //(the actual service)
Services.Events.EventExtensions.cs
Services.Events.ParticipantCoordinator.cs
Services.Validators.DateValidator.cs
Services.Validators.ParticipantValidator.cs

I still think that could use some improvement though.

I used to like namespaces, but nowadays I think less is more. Deeply nesting your namespaces can make your code too verbose, and breaking things down to far reduces your ability for inheritance. In your code for example, a DateValidator class could easily be used elsewhere, so it shouldn't have many namespaces above it, since services other than the EventService can now take advantage of a DateValidator class. The same applies to the extension methods. There's no time (that I can see) where you'd need to see all your extension methods at the same time, therefore it makes more sense to group it with the thing that it relates to. In this case, EventExtensions probably links to your EventService, so logically they should sit together in my opinion.

C# – What naming convention for C# file that contains multiple classes

My advice: avoid files containing multiple classes and name files==classes even if you mean there are too many files. Try to organize them in folders. In very special cases you might have nested classes. In this case it makes sense separating the main class and a nested class into different files having one partial class. In this case I use following naming convention.

MyEnumerable.cs
MyEnumerable.MyEnumerator.cs

Probably you can also use multipart file names in your case.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Namespace and Class Name Guidelines in C#

C# – What naming convention for C# file that contains multiple classes

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