Reputation: 7889

Overriding methods in compiled library without inheritance in C#

I have a class library in C# which is compiled into a dll. Is it possible to change something in a compiled class method for a specific project without touching the original source code or creating a new class by inheritance?

Upvotes: 0

Answers (6)

Dan Bryant

Reputation: 27515

It's technically possible using code rewriting via a technique used by frameworks like Moles. However, I wouldn't recommend this. Instead, you'd be better off with an wrapper class that delegates calls to a contained object and overrides the behavior you're after for only the specific methods that must change.

Upvotes: 3

Pontus Gagge

Reputation: 17268

With some heavy hacking involving reflection and reflection emit into a new application domain, sure. But I doubt it would be worth it.

Upvotes: 0

Jagmag

Reputation: 10366

Not to the best of my knowledge. Can you explain more about your scenario as to why you would need to do something like this?

Upvotes: 0

Tomas Aschan

Reputation: 60634

If you have the source code but don't want to change it - branch it.

If you're OK with a slightly different method signature, write an extension method.

If none of the above work for you, and the class must have the same name, inherit with a class of the same name, override, and place the class in a different namespace. Differentiate from the original by namespaces. Just inheriting normally will probably be easier to maintain, though...

If you're still not happy, I can't help you.

Upvotes: 0