Code Smell 34 — Too Many Attributes

A class defines objects with lots of attributes.

Photo by Andy Li on Unsplash

Problems

• Low Cohesion
• Coupling
• Maintainability
• Readability

Solutions

1. Find methods related to attributes.
2. Cluster these methods.
3. Break the object related to those clusters.
4. Find real objects related to this new objects and replace existing references.

Examples

• DTOs
• Denormalized table rows

Sample Code

Wrong

Right

Detection

Most linters warn when you declare too many attributes. Setting a good warning threshold should be easy.

Tags

• Primitive

Conclusion

Bloated objects know too much and are very difficult to change due to cohesion.

Developers change these objects a lot, so they bring merge conflicts and are a common problems source.

Relations

Code Smell 10 — Too Many Arguments

So much complexity in software comes from trying to make one thing do two things.

Ryan Singer

Software Engineering Great Quotes

This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.

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