Updating class property inside the method vs. returning a value from the method

Question

In a large code base, what is a good practice between: Updating class properties inside the method vs. returning a value from the method and updating the property in the place where the call to the method was.

Example 1: Updating class properties inside the method

def sendFileToS3OrFileServer(Request request) {
 if (settings.isS3())
 request.s3Url = helper.uploadToS3(request.absoluteFilePath)
 else if (settings.isFileServer())
 request.fileServerUrl = helper.uploadToFileServer(request.absoluteFilePath)
}
//call the method above
sendFileToS3OrFileServer(request)

Example 2: Returning from the method instead of updating inside the method

String sendFileToS3OrFileServer(Request request) {
 if (settings.isS3())
 return helper.uploadToS3(request.absoluteFilePath)
 else if (settings.isFileServer())
 return helper.uploadToFileServer(request.absoluteFilePath)
}
//call the method above
request.commonS3OrFileServerUrl = sendFileToS3OrFileServer(request)

• gardenhead: I would like to help but your question is a bit unclear, because I can't tell what the code is trying to accomplish; my advice is to either simplify your code into the essence of the problem (toy example), or give us enough context (class definitions, etc) so we can understand the full example.
• srrm_lwn: Yes more context please - specifically why is Request mutable, and the need for it to hold on to an S3 or a FileServerUrl? Are you trying to capture a Response to handle the action of uploading to S3 or a FileServer instead? As a side note, the uploadXXX() methods returning a url seems a bit awkward, as I would have expected the upload method to do one thing and one thing only - i.e. perform the upload function and maybe return a boolean indicating a success or a failure, not a url of where it uploaded to. It is unclear as to what you want to do with the url.