What is a responsibility?

In the context of the SRP we define a responsibility as a “reason for change”. If you can think of more than one reason to change a class, it has multiple responsibilities and thus breaks the SRP.

Single Responsibility Principle advantages

Using the Single Responsibility Principle has multiple advantages:

• Your code becomes more decoupled
• You get reusable code
• Your code is more testable.

Single Responsibility Principle example

Let’s make the Single Responsibility Principle more clear with a simple example.

We create a class called Burglar, which has a method called steal. This method breaks the SRP because it doesn’t just steal. It also puts on and removes the invisibility cloak, which might lead to all sorts of issues for the burglar.

class Burglar:
    def __init__(self):
        self._artifacts = []

    def steal(self, artifact: str):
        print("Putting on the invisibility cloak.")
        print("Taking the artifact.")
        self._artifacts.append(artifact)
        print("Removing the invisibility cloak.")

bilbo = Burglar()
bilbo.steal("Arkenstone")

A better way would be to create separate methods that can be called when appropriate.

class Burglar:
    def __init__(self):
        self._artifacts = []

    def steal(self, artifact: str):
        print("Taking the artifact.")
        self._artifacts.append(artifact)

    def cloak(self):
        print("Putting on the invisibility cloak.")

    def remove_cloak(self):
        print("Removing the invisibility cloak.")


bilbo = Burglar()
bilbo.cloak()
bilbo.steal("Arkenstone")
bilbo.remove_cloak()

Now Bilbo can put on the cloak, walk in, steal the Arkenstone, walk out so he won’t be seen by Smaug and remove the cloak.