Global Data

Data that can be modified from anywhere in the codebase. It’s difficult to reason about and difficult to unit test. It’s particularly bad if you can’t easily find all the pieces of code that change the global data. A Singleton is a kind of global, as are class variables. Global data that you can guarantee remains unchanged after the program starts is less problematic.

Sources

• This smell is included Martin Fowler's book "Refactoring", 2nd Edition

Back to All Code Smells