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POTypecast or convert method?
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copied!<p>I have a container class with parameters which come from different kinds of configuration files (text or xml for example).</p> <p>So I made a class for textConfigurationFiles and a class for xmlConfigurationFiles (I think I will implement an interface IConfigFile for this later).</p> <p>The initialisation of my container class looks like the following:</p> <pre><code>ContainerClass myContainer = new ContainerClass(); myTextConfig = new TextConfig(textFile); myContainer.ParameterA = myTextConfig.ParameterA; myContainer.ParameterB = myTextConfig.ParameterB; myContainer.ParameterC = myTextConfig.ParameterC; </code></pre> <p>or for xml</p> <pre><code>ContainerClass myContainer = new ContainerClass(); myXMLConfig = new XMLConfig(xmlFile); myContainer.ParameterA = myXMLConfig.ParameterA; myContainer.ParameterB = myXMLConfig.ParameterB; myContainer.ParameterC = myXMLConfig.ParameterC; </code></pre> <p>but instead of assigning every single value I would like to do some kind of conversion. Now I don't know if I should implement a typecast or just a simple method that returns a ContainerClass-object?</p> <pre><code>myContainer = myTextConfig.ConvertToContainer(); </code></pre> <p>or</p> <pre><code>myContainer = (ContainerClass)myTextConfig; </code></pre> <p>What would be your suggestion?</p> <p>Because I'm trying to implement the Single Responsibility Principle I want my ContainerClass to represent a simple Container. So I think something like</p> <pre><code>ContainerClass myContainer = new ContainerClass(configFile); </code></pre> <p>would break with SRP?</p> <p>Perhaps I should mention that my ContainerClass is initialized by a text <strong>or</strong> a xml file; it's not that the parameters result from both a text <strong>and</strong> a xml file.</p> <hr> <p><strong>[EDIT: Additional information]</strong></p> <p>ContainerClass represents a container with database configuration information (paths, name etc.).</p> <p>textFile represents a database configuration.</p> <p>xmlFile contains a database configuration, too, but has more (database configuration) parameters than my textFile.</p> <p>I think about sth. like:</p> <pre><code>IConfig config = new TextFileConfig(fileName); ContainerClass container = config.ConverToContainer(); </code></pre> <p>or</p> <pre><code>IConfig config = new TextFileConfig(fileName); ContainerClass container = (ContainerClass)config; </code></pre> <p>In TextFileConfig:</p> <pre><code>public class TextFileConfig : IConfig { ContainerClass container; // // Constructor // public TextFileConfig(string fileName) { // // Initialize all values from file fileName // ... // // Initialize container with standard values // container = new ContainerClass(); // // Merge container with values from textFile // ... // // Now container contains all values from textFile, // all missing parameters are initialized with // standard values. // } public ContainerClass ConvertMethodOrTypecastThatsTheQuestion() { return container; } } </code></pre> <p>So should I prefer a convert method, a typecast or both?</p> <p>At first I think about performance, best usage and personal habits.</p>

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