How to do inheritance with singleton

Question

I want to know how to inherit from a class 'BaseClient' that has a singleton and be able to use same instance of basic members from base class singleton in the inherited class too.

public class BaseClient
{
    protected string _url;
    protected string _username;
    protected string _password;

    private static BaseClient _instance;
    private static readonly object padlock = new object();

    public static BaseClient Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock (padlock)
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new BaseClient(true);
                }
                return _instance;
            }
        }
    }

    public void SetInfo(string url, string username, string password)
    {
        _url = url;
        _username = username;
        _password = password;
    }

    public string GetVersion()
    {
        //MyService is a simple static service provider
        return MyService.GetVersion(_url, _username, _password);
    }
}

public class Advanced : BaseClient
{
    private static AdvancedClient _instance;
    private static readonly object padlock = new object();

    public static AdvancedClient Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock (padlock)
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new AdvancedClient(true);
                }
                return _instance;
            }
        }
    }

    public void DoAdvancedMethod()
    {
        MyService.DoSomething(_url, _username, _password);
    }
}

So if I use BaseClient.Instance.SetInfo("http://myUrl", "myUser", "myPassword"); and then AdvancedClient.Instance.DoAdvancedMethod(), the AdvancedClient singleton will use the same base member instance as the BaseClient singleton?

Answer 1

Just kidding :) here's my solution:

I simply use an independent class to store the shared members and on AdvancedClient singleton creation, retrieve the BaseClient one.

public class ClientInfo
{
    public string Url { get; set; }
    public string Username { get; set; }
    public string Password { get; set; }
}

public class BaseClient
{
    protected ClientInfo _info;

    private static BaseClient _instance;
    private static readonly object padlock = new object();

    public static BaseClient Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock (padlock)
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new BaseClient(true);
                }
                return _instance;
            }
        }
    }

    public ClientInfo Info
    {
        get
        {
            if(_info == null)
            {
                _info = new ClientInfo();
            }

            return _info;
        }
    }

    public void SetInfo(string url, string username, string password)
    {
        Info.Url = url;
        Info.Username = username;
        Info.Password = password;
    }

    public string GetVersion()
    {
        //MyService is a simple static service provider
        return MyService.GetVersion(Info.Url, Info.Username, Info.Password);
    }
}

public class Advanced : BaseClient
{
    private static AdvancedClient _instance;
    private static readonly object padlock = new object();

    public static AdvancedClient Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock (padlock)
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new AdvancedClient(true);
                    _instance._info = BaseClient.Instance.Info;
                }
                return _instance;
            }
        }
    }

    public void DoAdvancedMethod()
    {
        MyService.DoSomething(Info.Url, Info.Username, Info.Password);
    }
}

Answer 2

I've always found it much easier to implement this type of solution using a generic:

public class Singleton<T> where T : class
{

    protected Singleton()
    {
    }

    public static T Instance
    {
        get { return SingletonFactory.instance; }
    }

    public void SetInfo(string url, string username, string password)
    {
        ...
    }

    public string GetVersion()
    {
        ...
    }

    class SingletonFactory
    {

        internal static readonly T instance;

        static SingletonFactory()
        {
            ConstructorInfo constructor = typeof(T).GetConstructor(
                       BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic,
                       null, new System.Type[0],
                       new ParameterModifier[0]);

            if (constructor == null)
                throw new Exception(
                    "Target type is missing private or protected no-args constructor: type=" + 
                    typeof(T).FullName);
            try
            {
                instance = constructor.Invoke(new object[0]) as T;
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                throw new Exception(
                    "Failed to create target: type=" + typeof(T).FullName, e);
            }
        }

    }

}

public class Advanced : Singleton<Advanced>
{
    ...
}

Answer 3

Since _instance is private in both classes these are two different variables. _instance would have to be protected in order to be shared. The derived class cannot access a private member of the base class!

Answer 4

You could change the meaning of the singleton in your base class to something like this:

public static BaseClient Instance
{
    get
    {
        lock (padlock)
        {
            if (_instance == null)
            {
                _instance = (BaseClient)(new AdvancedClient(true));
            }
            return _instance;
        }
    }
}