Question

I was thinking of a loader class and came up with two different approaches.

class Loader{
public:
  Loader(const Path& path);
  File load() const;

private:
  Path path_;
};

vs

class Loader{
public:
  Loader();
  File load(const Path& path) const;
};

With the first approach, I need one Loader per file and the Loader class represents a state. With the second one, I can load different Files with one loader class.
Besides these obvious differences which approach would you choose and why or is there a third maybe superiour way?

Answer 1

There are other approaches as well.

If you don’t maintain any state in the Loader class when loading a file, then you can simply write a free function

File load(const Path& path); //a free function.

Or you can make the function static if you want it to be a member function

class Loader{
public:
  static File load(const Path& path);
};

//usage
Loader::load(path);

Sometimes such solutions entirely depend on the situation, and sometimes on company/programmer’s personal preferences and taste. There is no one best solution as such!

You can even choose to write the load function in the File class itself:

class File {
public:
  bool load(const Path& path); //non-static, or/and the next one!
  static File load(const Path& path); //static
};

In this, maybe, you would want to change the name of the function: open() seems better than load().