What kind of generic helper functions have you created? What type of structure and processing do you use for such functions?

Question

I just wanted to collect peoples' ideas on generic helper functions that perform various tasks for a variety of processing structures. I think having a collection of "toolbox" methods for general and specific usage is important for successful programming. Thanks.

Answer 1

I personally started out with a set of generic JavaScript functions for web form validation and element checking. The form validation triggered error images to appear beside offending form elements and used the images as a check to determine whether a form had errors or not. This sped up my development very well and was useful for implementing redundant processing. I also wrote a server-side version of the JavaScript processing for comprehensive validation. I then moved on to C# and have a set of generic functions for various processing problems, primarily for use with ASP.NET MVC.