Utility class in Spring application - should I use static methods or not?

Question

Let\'s say I have a utility class DateUtil (see below). To use this method a caller method uses DateUtils.getDateAsString(aDate). Would it be better to remove the static modifie

Answer 1

I don't think so. A DateUtils class sounds like a pure utility class that doesn't have any side effects but just processes input parameters. That kind of functionality may as well remain in a static method. I don't think it's very likely that you'll want to mock date helper methods.