CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#typespropertiesweakly-typed
Shuun
Shuun

Reputation: 95

C# interchangeable properties

I'm trying to create a substitute for kind of property, that accepts multiple types as inputs/outputs.

Here is some pseudo code of one ugly solution:

http://pastebin.com/gbh4SrZX

Basically i have piece of data and i need to be able assign multiple types to it, and react accordingly. I have pieces of data that i operate with, and i need efficient way to manage loading them from file names when needed, while maintaining the same code, if I'm manipulating with data, that's already loaded.

This would be awesome:

SomeDataClass data1 = new SomeDataClass();
SomeDataClass data2 = new SomeDataClass();

data1.Data = "somefile.dat";
data2.Data = data1.Data;

while SomeDataClass.Data is not type of string.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 580

Answers (3)

Michiel Cornille
Michiel Cornille

Reputation: 2097

Not sure what the problem you're trying to solve with this really is, but it seems to me like you'd be better of with using a byte[], working with a stream of data, loaded either from disk or somewhere else.

Also consider just coding to a common Interface, instead of using dynamic and object.

Upvotes: 0

Marc Gravell
Marc Gravell

Reputation: 1063569

You can do much of that with an implicit conversion operator, i.e.

class SomeDataClass {
    public SomeData Data {get;set;}
}
class SomeData {
    static SomeData Load(string path) {
        return new SomeData(); // TODO
    }
    public static implicit operator SomeData(string path)
    {
        return Load(path);
    }
}
static class Program {
    static void Main()
    {
        SomeDataClass data1 = new SomeDataClass();
        SomeDataClass data2 = new SomeDataClass();

        data1.Data = "somefile.dat"; // this is a load
        data2.Data = data1.Data; // this is not a load
    }
}

However! Frankly, I would consider it more desirable to just make the operation explicit:

class SomeDataClass {
    public SomeData Data {get;set;}
}
class SomeData {
    public static SomeData Load(string path) {
        return new SomeData(); // TODO
    }
}
static class Program {
    static void Main()
    {
        SomeDataClass data1 = new SomeDataClass();
        SomeDataClass data2 = new SomeDataClass();

        data1.Data = SomeData.Load("somefile.dat");
        data2.Data = data1.Data;
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

Simon Whitehead
Simon Whitehead

Reputation: 65077

Have you considered using dynamic?

class A {
    public dynamic property1 { get; set; }
    public dynamic property2 { get; set; }
}

class Program {

    static void Main(string[] args) {

        A a = new A();
        A b = new A();

        a.property1 = "hello world!";
        b.property2 = a.property1;

        Console.WriteLine(b.property2); // writes "hello world!"
    }
}

Upvotes: 1

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