Code Smell 10 - Too Many Arguments
Objects or Functions need too many arguments to work.
29 September, 2022
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Contributors
Objects or Functions need too many arguments to work.
TL;DR: Don't pass more than three arguments to your functions.
Problems
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Low maintainability
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Low Reuse
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Coupling
Solutions
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Find cohesive relations among arguments
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Create a "context".
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Consider using a Method Object Pattern.
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Avoid "basic" Types: strings, arrays, integers, etc. Think on objects.
Sample Code
Wrong
Right
Detection
Most linters warn when the arguments list is too large.
Exceptions
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Operations in real world needing not cohesive collaborators.
Tags
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primitive
Conclusion
Relate arguments and group them.
Always favor real world mappings. Find in real world how to group the arguments in cohesive objects.
If a function gets too many arguments, some of them might be related to the class construction. This is a design smell too.
Relations
Credits
Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash
This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.
programming
refactoring
code
cleancode
smells