Question

I have a superclass with two subclasses. The two subclasses both have a method with checks whether a chapter has content. For subclass 1 this method is HasContent(int chapterID) and for subclass 2 this is HasContent(int chapterID, int institution). As you can see subclass 2 has an extra parameter. The purpose of both methods is the same.

I was thinking to put the method HasContent in the superclass. Do you think i need to do this? If so, how should i implement this? Or is it more wisely to put both methods in their own subclass?

EDIT:

The body of HasDocuments looks like this: Subclass1:

Database DB = new Database(); int res = DB.ExecuteSpRetVal(chapterID, mInstitutionID);  if (res > 0)     return true; else     return false; 

Subclass2:

Database DB = new Database(); int res = DB.ExecuteSpRetVal(chapterID);  if (res > 0)     return true; else     return false; 

Answer 1

Edit: Updated according to the question update.

Since you are clearly having almost the same logic in both methods, I’d refactor it like this:

abstract class SuperClass {     protected bool HasContentImpl(int chapterID, int institution)     {         Database db = new Database();         int result;          if (institution >= 0) // assuming negative numbers are out of range             result = db.ExecuteSpRetVal(chapterID, institution);         else             result = db.ExecuteSpRetVal(chapterID);          return result > 0;     } }  class SubClass1 : SuperClass {     public bool HasContent(int chapterID)     {         return base.HasContentImpl(chapterID, -1);     } }  class SubClass2 : SuperClass {     public bool HasContent(int chapterID, int institution)     {         return base.HasContentImpl(chapterID, institution);     } }