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Static (Shared) Members

There are times when you don't need an entire class to perform some action. If you need a method that, for example, redirects a user to a specific URL, instantiating an entire class would be overkill. That's where static methods come in!

Marking a method static (or Shared in VB) means that you don't have to create an instance of the containing class in order to use it. A redirect method that you might use across your entire application might look like the method in Listing 2.14.

Listing 2.14. A static method

C#

public class MyMethods
{
public static void SpecialRedirect()
{
Response.Redirect("somepage.aspx");
}
}

VB.NET

Public Class MyMethods
Public Shared Sub SpecialRedirect()
Response.Redirect("somepage.aspx")
End Sub
End Class

Calling this method is just a matter of specifying the class name itself, followed by the method name:

MyMethods.SpecialRedirect()

I find that in almost every large project, there are little pieces of functionality that don't really fit anywhere and that certainly don't merit their own class. Inevitably, I end up with a class called Utility with several static methods like the previous one.