Question

The situation is as follows.

public interface IFoo { }  public abstract class FooBase : IFoo { } 

Now I need a collection of IFoo with some additional methods.

public class IFooCollection : List<IFoo> {    public void UsefullMethod() { } } 

The problem is that IFooCollection looks like an interface while it is a class. The options are the following.

1. Keep it IFooCollection – I don’t like this because it looks like an interface.
2. Name it FooCollection – I don’t like this because it is not a collection of foos.
3. Turn it into FooBaseCollection because all implementations of IFoo derive from FooBase – I don’t like this because this might not be true forever.
4. Don’t create the class at all but provide extension methods for IList<IFoo> because there are only a hand full methods – I don’t like this because changing the code because you cannot find a name for a class … yes, that is nasty.
5. Something I did not think about or forgot to write it down – I hope I will like it!

So what would you do? Is there a naming convention I missed? We are basicaly using this Microsoft .NET Library Standards.

UPDATE

The code will not become widespread – it is just inside a GUI tool to put some data into a server. So I don’t care about using the methods with other collections or overlooking the methods.

Answer 1

I like FooCollection you have a collection of the conceptual object ‘Foo’ even if there is not an actual Foo class or interface. This is in keeping with IFoo is an interface of a ‘Foo’ even if there is no Foo class. SpecialFoo would be a special kind of ‘Foo’ even though there is no Foo class.

I definitely agree that IFooCollection is wrong because of the implied interface.