CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#classconstructorstaticinitialization
peedurrr
peedurrr

Reputation: 197

static class self reference

I'm trying to create a basic Foo class, and would like to duplicate the way a Color works, but I'm having trouble getting my head around it. E.g., I'd like to get this functionality ... 

Color color = Color.Red;

for my Foo, and write

Foo x = Foo.y;

On a related note, and if I understand this correctly,

string s = "...";

is the same as

string s = new string("...".ToCharArray())

My questions is, can I define types that act and behave like that, so that I could have something like

Bar w = 1; which would be the same as Bar w = new Bar(1);

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1066

Answers (1)

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1501043

For the first part of your question, it sounds like you just want static fields or properties, e.g.

public class Foo
{
    // A field...
    public static readonly Foo MyFunkyFooField = new Foo(...);

    // A property - which could return a field, or create a new instance
    // each time.
    public static Foo MyFunkyFooProperty { get { return ...; } }
}

For the second part, using a string literal is not like calling new string(...), because it reuses the same string reference every time. You can't easily come up with your own behaviour like that.

You can create a custom implicit conversion from int to Bar, so that

Bar x = 1;

will work... but I would think twice about doing so. Implicit conversions often hurt code readability by hiding behaviour.

Upvotes: 1

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