CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#listinheritance
Andy Latham
Andy Latham

Reputation: 387

Access properties of inheriting class

I have a class as follows:

class Object
{
   ...
   Method();
}

And a number of classes which inherit it:

class ObjectVariant1 : Object
{
   ...
   Method1();
}

class ObjectVariant2 : Object
{
   ...
   Method2();
}

I have a list, into which all objects are put:

List<Object> objectList = new List<Object>();

I want to be able to go through the list and for each member I want to be able to call the MethodX() within the variant class rather than the inherited Method().

The only way I have found to do this is as follows:

foreach (var obj in objectList)
{
   if (obj is ObjectVariant1)
   {
      ObjectVariant1 newObj = (ObjectVariant1)obj;
      newObj.Method();
   }

   if (obj is ObjectVariant2)
   {
      ObjectVariant2 newObj = (ObjectVariant2)obj;
      newObj.Method();
   }
}

However I would like to be able to add new ObjectVariant classes easily, without having to add extra checks like these. Is there a way to automate the foreach loop without me having to add a new check for each class that I create?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 194

Answers (1)

Fabjan
Fabjan

Reputation: 13676

You could change Object to interface IObject and use it:

public interface IObject
{
   void Method();
}

class ObjectVariant1 : IObject
{
   public void Method() 
   {

   }
}

class ObjectVariant2 : IObject
{
   public void Method() 
   {

   }
}

And then you could use your List<IObject> objectList and call obj.Method() Another way of doing it (using polymorphism in C#) is by using virtual - override keywords

Upvotes: 1

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