One class per file rule in .NET? [closed]

Answer 1

Is that really a problem?:)
Really small classes, just like enums, can be put together with others. There's one rule to follow: put together only classes that have something in common.

As a digression - in one of my projects I have a file that has 150 classes inside. The file has 10000 lines of code. But it's auto generated so it's fully acceptable :)

Answer 2

One case could be: when your classes jointly form a module / unit that serves some main classes like helper classes, other wise no.

have a look at ASP.NET MVC 2.0 project source code. It strictly follows this rule

Answer 3

I would normally have one class per file but you would normally have to use your discretion to see if the file could contain related classes e.g. grouping your exceptions which can be re-used by yourself and other developers. In this case, the user only needs one file to be included rather than multiple files.

So the point is: discretion should be used!!!

Answer 4

The StyleCop tool for C# has standard rules that require no more than one top-level class in one namespace (plus any number of interfaces, delegates and enums in that namespace).

In cases of two or more classes where the second and subsequent classes are only ever used by the first, those could and should be inner classes, visible only to the consuming class.

Answer 5

I follow it 99% of the time. It's good to follow standards, but I also believe flexibility has its place. Sometimes it just seems like a silly waste of time to break things apart. In those times, I get over myself and just write my code.

Answer 6

I like the idea of creating smaller classes and making sure that the class is doing only what it is supposed to do. If you have multiple classes which are contributing to solve a single problem then there is no harm in putting them together in the same file.

I would not follow MS practices as they are not the BEST PRACTICES!