I have this sealed class,
public sealed class A
{
public string AName {get;set;}
}
and someone can write an extension method for it like this:
public static class Extensions
{
public static void ExtensionMethodForA (this A a)
{
Console.WriteLine("A's Extension method!");
}
}
The question is, how do you prevent that ?
You don't. You can't. And you shouldn't want to.
Instance methods are always preferred to extension methods, so it should not present a conflict. Other than that, they are mere syntax / convenience. Stop trying to make life inconvenient for callers.
You might be confused by the term "extension method". It is not a method in the class or even a derived class; It is an operation on a type. It has no access to the private, protected or internal members of the class hierarchy and therefore the class is still sealed.
So, you can't and don't need to.
There would be no point. Any user could still create a static class which implemented a method which used your class type.
They would just leave out the 'this' out of the declaration, and callers would have to explicitly pass the object, rather than using the simpler . syntax. The end result would be identical.
Extension methods are just a nicer way of expressing what I've just described, which will always be possible anyway.
Related
Is there a way of forcing a (child) class to have constructors with particular signatures or particular static methods in C# or Java?
You can't obviously use interfaces for this, and I know that it will have a limited usage. One instance in which I do find it useful is when you want to enforce some design guideline, for example:
Exceptions
They should all have the four canonical constructors, but there is no way to enforce it. You have to rely on a tool like FxCop (C# case) to catch these.
Operators
There is no contract that specifies that two classes can be summed (with operator+ in C#)
Is there any design pattern to work around this limitation?
What construct could be added to the language to overcome this limitation in future versions of C# or Java?
Using generics you can force a type argument to have a parameterless constructor - but that's about the limit of it.
Other than in generics, it would be tricky to actually use these restrictions even if they existed, but it could sometimes be useful for type parameters/arguments. Allowing static members in interfaces (or possibly static interfaces) could likewise help with the "generic numeric operator" issue.
I wrote about this a little while ago when facing a similar problem.
Not enforced at compile-time, but I have spent a lot of time looking at similar issues; a generic-enabled maths library, and an efficient (non-default) ctor API are both avaiable in MiscUtil. However, these are only checked at first-usage at runtime. In reality this isn't a big problem - your unit tests should find any missing operator / ctor very quickly. But it works, and very quickly...
You could use the Factory pattern.
interface Fruit{}
interface FruitFactory<F extends Fruit>{
F newFruit(String color,double weight);
Cocktail mixFruits(F f1,F f2);
}
You could then create classes for any type of Fruit
class Apple implements Fruit{}
class AppleFactory implements FruitFactory<Apple>{
public Apple newFruit(String color, double weight){
// create an instance
}
public Cocktail mixFruits(Apple f1,Apple f2){
// implementation
}
}
This does not enforce that you can't create instance in another way than by using the Factory but at least you can specify which methods you would request from a Factory.
Force Constructors
You can't. The closest that you can come is make the default constructor private and then provide a constructor that has parameters. But it still has loopholes.
class Base
{
private Base() { }
public Base(int x) {}
}
class Derived : Base
{
//public Derived() { } won't compile because Base() is private
public Derived(int x) :base(x) {}
public Derived() : base (0) {} // still works because you are giving a value to base
}
The problem in the language is that static methods are really second class citizens (A constructor is also a kind of static method, because you don't need an instance to start with).
Static methods are just global methods with a namespace, they don't really "belong" to the class they are defined in (OK, they have access to private (static) methods in the class, but that's about it).
The problem on the compiler level is that without a class instance you don't have a virtual function table, which means you cannot use all the inheritance and polymorphism stuff.
I think one could make it work by adding a global/static virtual table for each class but if it hasn't been done yet, there's probably a good reason for it.
Here is I would solve it if I were a language designer.
Allow interfaces to include static methods, operators and constructors.
interface IFoo
{
IFoo(int gottaHaveThis);
static Bar();
}
interface ISummable
{
operator+(ISummable a, ISummable b);
}
Don't allow the corresponding new IFoo(someInt) or IFoo.Bar()
Allow constructors to be inherited (just like static methods).
class Foo: IFoo
{
Foo(int gottaHaveThis) {};
static Bar() {};
}
class SonOfFoo: Foo
{
// SonOfFoo(int gottaHaveThis): base(gottaHaveThis); is implicitly defined
}
class DaughterOfFoo: Foo
{
DaughhterOfFoo (int gottaHaveThis) {};
}
Allow the programmer to cast to interfaces and check, if necessary, at run time if the cast is semantically valid even if the class does not specify explicitly.
ISummable PassedFirstGrade = (ISummable) 10;
Unfortunately you can't in C#. Here is a punch at it though:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(Foo.Instance.GetHelloWorld());
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public class Foo : FooStaticContract<FooFactory>
{
public Foo() // Non-static ctor.
{
}
internal Foo(bool st) // Overloaded, parameter not used.
{
}
public override string GetHelloWorld()
{
return "Hello World";
}
}
public class FooFactory : IStaticContractFactory<Foo>
{
#region StaticContractFactory<Foo> Members
public Foo CreateInstance()
{
return new Foo(true); // Call static ctor.
}
#endregion
}
public interface IStaticContractFactory<T>
{
T CreateInstance();
}
public abstract class StaticContract<T, Factory>
where Factory : IStaticContractFactory<T>, new()
where T : class
{
private static Factory _factory = new Factory();
private static T _instance;
/// <summary>
/// Gets an instance of this class.
/// </summary>
public static T Instance
{
get
{
// Scary.
if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _instance, null, null) == null)
{
T instance = _factory.CreateInstance();
Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _instance, instance, null);
}
return _instance;
}
}
}
public abstract class FooStaticContract<Factory>
: StaticContract<Foo, Factory>
where Factory : IStaticContractFactory<Foo>, new()
{
public abstract string GetHelloWorld();
}
Well, I know from the wording of your question you are looking for compile-time enforcement. Unless someone else has a brilliant suggestion/hack that will allow you to do this the way you are implying the compiler should, I would suggest that you could write a custom MSbuild task that did this. An AOP framework like PostSharp might help you accomplish this at comiple-time by piggy backing on it's build task model.
But what is wrong with code analysis or run-time enforcement? Maybe it's just preference and I respect that, but I personally have no issues with having CA/FXCop check these things... and if you really want to force downstream implementers of your classes to have constructor signatures, you can always add rules run-time checking in the base class constructor using reflection.
Richard
I'm unsure as to what you are trying to achieve, can you please elaborate? The only reason for forcing a specific constructor or static method accross different classes is to try and execute them dynamically at run time, is this correct?
A constructor is intended to be specific to a particular class, as it is intended to initialise the specific needs of the class. As I understand it, the reason you would want to enforce something in a class hierarchy or interface, is that it is an activity/operation relevant to the process being performed, but may vary in different circumstances. I believe this is the intended benefit of polymorphism, which you can't achieve using static methods.
It would also require knowing the specific type of the class you wanted to call the static method for, which would break all of the polymorphic hiding of differences in behaviour that the interface or abstract class is trying to achieve.
If the behaviour being represented by the constructor is intended to be part of the contract between the client of these classes then I would add it explicitly to the interface.
If a hierarchy of classes have similar initialisation requirements then I would use an abstract base class, however it should be up to the inheriting classes how they find the parameter for that constructor, which may include exposing a similar or identical constructor.
If this is intended to allow you to create different instances at runtime, then I would recommend using a static method on an abstract base class which knows the different needs of all of the concrete classes (you could use dependency injection for this).
I want to know the reason behind the design of restricting Abstract Methods in Non Abstract Class (in C#).
I understand that the class instance won't have the definition and thus they wont be callable, but when static methods are defined,they are excluded from the instance too. Why abstract methods are not handled that way, any specific reason for the same?
They could be allowed in concrete class and the deriving class can be forced to implement methods, basically that is what, is done in case of abstract methods in an abstract class.
First, I think that what you're asking doesn't logically make sense. If you have an abstract method, it basically means that the method is unfinished (as #ChrisSinclair pointed out). But that also means the whole class is unfinished, so it also has to be abstract.
Or another way to put it: if you had an abstract method on a class that wasn't abstract, that would mean you had a method that cannot be called. But that means the method is not useful, you could remove it and it would all work the same.
Now, I'll try to be more concrete by using an example: imagine the following code:
Animal[] zoo = new Animal[] { new Monkey(), new Fish(), new Animal() };
foreach (Animal animal in zoo)
animal.MakeSound();
Here, Animal is the non-abstract base class (which is why I can put it directly into the array), Monkey and Fish are derived from Animal and MakeSound() is the abstract method. What should this code do? You didn't state that clearly, but I can imagine few options:
You can't call MakeSound() on a variable typed as Animal, you can call it only using a variable typed as one of the derived classes, so this is a compile error.
This is not a good solution, because the whole point of abstract is to be able to treat instances of derived classes as the base class, and still get behaviour that's specific to the derived class. If you want this, just put a normal (no abstract, virtual or override) method into each derived class and don't do anything with the base class.
You can't call MakeSound() on an object whose runtime type is actually Animal, so this is a runtime error (an exception).
This is also not a good solution. C# is a statically typed language and so it tries to catch errors like “you can't call this method” at compile time (with obvious exceptions like reflection and dynamic), so making this into a runtime error wouldn't fit with the rest of the language. Besides, you can do this easily by creating a virtual method in the base class that throws an exception.
To sum up, you want something that doesn't make much sense, and smells of bad design (a base class that behaves differently than its derived classes) and can be worked around quite easily. These are all signs of a feature that should not be implemented.
So, you want to allow
class C { abstract void M(); }
to compile. Suppose it did. What do you then want to happen when someone does
new C().M();
? You want an execution-time error? Well, in general C# prefers compile-time errors to execution-time errors. If you don't like that philosophy, there are other languages available...
I think you've answered your own question, an abstract method isn't defined initially. Therefore the class cannot be instanciated. You're saying it should ignore it, but by definition when adding an abstract method you're saying "every class created from this must implement this {abstract method}" hence the class where you define the abstract class must also be abstract because the abstract method is still undefined at that point.
The abstract class may contain abstract member. There is the only method declaration if any method has an abstract keyword we can't implement in the same class. So the abstract class is incompleted. That is why the object is not created for an abstract class.
Non-abstract class can't contain abstract member.
Example:
namespace InterviewPreparation
{
public abstract class baseclass
{
public abstract void method1(); //abstract method
public abstract void method2(); //abstract method
public void method3() { } //Non- abstract method----->It is necessary to implement here.
}
class childclass : baseclass
{
public override void method1() { }
public override void method2() { }
}
public class Program //Non Abstract Class
{
public static void Main()
{
baseclass b = new childclass(); //create instance
b.method1();
b.method2();
b.method3();
}
}
}
You can achieve what you want using "virtual" methods but using virtual methods can lead to more runtime business logic errors as a developer is not "forced" to implement the logic in the child class.
I think there's a valid point here. An abstract method is the perfect solution as it would "enforce" the requirement of defining the method body in children.
I have come across many many situations where the parent class had to (or it would be more efficient to) implement some logic but "Only" children could implement rest of the logic"
So if the opportunity was there I would happily mix abstract methods with complete methods.
#AakashM, I appreciate C# prefers compile time errors. So do I. And so does anybody. This is about thinking out-of-the-box.
And supporting this will not affect that.
Let's think out of the box here, rather than saying "hurrah" to big boy decisions.
C# compiler can detect and deny someone of using an abstract class directly because it uses the "abstract" keyword.
C# also knows to force any child class to implement any abstract methods. How? because of the use of the "abstract" keyword.
This is pretty simple to understand to anyone who has studied the internals of a programming language.
So, why can't C# detect an "abstract" keyword next to a method in a normal class and handle it at the COMPILE TIME.
The reason is it takes "reworking" and the effort is not worth supporting the small demand.
Specially in an industry that lacks people who think out of the boxes that big boys have given them.
It's still not clear why you would want that, but an alternative approach could be to force derived classes to provide a delegate instance. Something like this
class MyConcreteClass
{
readonly Func<int, DateTime, string> methodImpl;
// constructor requires a delegate instance
public MyConcreteClass(Func<int, DateTime, string> methodImpl)
{
if (methodImpl == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException();
this.methodImpl = methodImpl;
}
...
}
(The signature string MethodImpl(int, DateTime) is just an example, of course.)
Otherwise, I can recommend the other answers to explain why your wish probably isn't something which would make the world better.
So the answers above are correct: having abstract methods makes the class inherently abstract. If you cannot instance part of a class, then you cannot instance the class itself. However, the answers above didn't really discuss your options here.
First, this is mainly an issue for public static methods. If the methods aren't intended to be public, then you could have protected non-abstract methods, which are allowed in an abstract class declaration. So, you could just move these static methods to a separate static class without much issue.
As an alternative, you could keep those methods in the class, but then instead of having abstract methods, declare an interface. Essentially, you have a multiple-inheritance problem as you want the derived class to inherit from two conceptually different objects: a non-abstract parent with public static members, and an abstract parent with abstract methods. Unlike some other frameworks, C# does permit multiple inheritance. Instead, C# offers a formal interface declaration that is intended to fill this purpose. Moreover, the whole point of abstract methods, really, is just to impose a certain conceptual interface.
I have a scenario very similar to what the OP is trying to achieve. In my case the method that I want to make abstract would be a protected method and would only be known to the base class. So the "new C().M();" does not apply because the method in question is not public. I want to be able to instantiate and call public methods on the base class (therefore it needs to be non-abstract), but I need these public methods to call a protected implementation of the protected method in the child class and have no default implementation in the parent. In a manner of speaking, I need to force descendants to override the method. I don't know what the child class is at compile time due to dependency injection.
My solution was to follow the rules and use a concrete base class and a virtual protected method. For the default implementation, though, I throw a NotImplementedException with the error "The implementation for method name must be provided in the implementation of the child class."
protected virtual void MyProtectedMethod()
{
throw new NotImplementedException("The implementation for MyProtectedMethod must be provided in the implementation of the child class.");
}
In this way a default implementation can never be used and implementers of descendant implementations will quickly see that they missed an important step.
I'm looking at some code right now, and I am a little confused. This class is not an interface, but why those methods are not defined? Also, bedsides method signatures, there is a regular property. Very confusing!
public class MyClass
{
public string Foo(string str1);
public string Bar(string str, int i);
public string myProperty { get; set; }
}
Thanks for helping
No, that is not valid as shown, and you could prove as much by trying to compile it. For a class to contain unimplemented methods it must be declared as abstract, and the same applies to each unimplemented method.
abstract classes are conceptually similar to an interface, but they may contain implementation as well. This makes them useful for scenarios in which some methods may share a common implementation all the way down the inheritance hierarchy, but others only have meaning when implemented by a descendant type.
Methods marked as extern or partial can also lack a body, but extern methods are typically interop (so it is implemented in native code), and partial methods will be implemented in another .cs file (and can be declared only in a class marked as partial).
As an aside, the property is fine because it is automatic (syntactical sugar which means that the backing field will be created for you and the get/set methods simply return/set that field, nothing more).
You can mark the methods as abstract and then you will have an abstract class
but why would you want to do that? if you don't have any code in a base class just use an interface
I was wondering what are the general benefits (or drawbacks) of using a non-static class with a static method versus a static class with the same static method, other than the fact that I cannot use static methods from a non-static class as extension methods.
For example:
class NonStaticClass
{
public static string GetData()
{
return "This was invoked from a non-static class.";
}
}
Versus this:
static class StaticClass
{
public static string GetData()
{
return "This was invoked from a static class.";
}
}
What are the performance/memory implications of using one method over another?
NOTE: Suppose that I do not need to instantiate the class. My use-case scenario is limited to something like this:
Console.WriteLine(NonStaticClass.GetData());
Console.WriteLine(StaticClass.GetData());
The main benefit is that if you make the class static, the compiler will make sure that your class will only have static members.
So anyone reading the code, will instantly see the class can't be instantiated, and there is no interaction to be considered with any instances of the class. Because there can't be any.
At the clr level, there is no notion of static. A static class is both abstract and sealed, which effectively prevents inheritance and instantiation.
As for performance, I don't see any possiblities for compiler or runtime to optimize one over the other.
In this example, I would focus on expressing your intent as clear as possible to the readers. You can always optimize later.
There are some peculiarity/limitation:
you can't instantiate static class
you can't inherit static class
So if you suppose such a behavior for you class (e.g. helper/util or extension methods container), if you want to limit it's usage - make it static.
There are no benefits or drawbacks.
It's just architectual decision.
Use static only classes in cases of providing a function set or function libriary.
As you can not instantiate it, but you can use it like.
MyMathLibrary.Plot(...)
This types are usually imply state less behavior. I repeat, usually.
Use simple classes with static members when you have "normal" type but need somehow a stateless method, like for example:
public class MyType
{
.... //some members
public static MyType ReadFromXml(XmlReader reader) {}
public static void SaveToXml(MyType mt) {}
}
There is no a silver bullet, it's just a matter of architect choice.
Performance implications: basically none.
You can create an instance of NonStaticClass, but since it has no non-static overriden methods it's pretty much as useful as saying object obj = new object(), which is to say it's useful for maybe locking and that's about it. Making the class static prevent someone from new-ing it, but it's not like that does any real harm.
It's more of a self documenting way of saying there's no reason to create an instance of the class.
I'm trying to add another restriction on a method within a generic class. Is this possible?
Pseudocode:
public class MyBaseClass<T> where T: class
{
public IQueryable<T> ShowThisMethod where T: class, IMyInterface
{
// stuff.
}
}
ShowThisMethod should only be available when T is IMyInterface. Also IMyInterface should then give information back (about T) so that I can access properties defined in IMyInterface inside of the method.
Help :)
By the way, this compiles (and seems "almost right"):
public class MyBaseClass<T> where T: class
{
public IQueryable<T> ShowThisMethod<T>() where T: class, IMyInterface
{
String X = T.MyInterfaceStringProperty;
}
}
More Information about my goal:
I'm using a generic base class to access a common property (DateTime "Time" property on LINQ object Dinner which is also on Lunch).
Both objects are implementing ITimeable which exposes the DateTime property.
In my base class I'd like to have a method Select() which works on IQueryable<T> and can automatically filter based on the Time property. Because I'm working off the generic T, the time property is not visible to the base class, unless I tell it that T is implementing ITimeable.
I do want the same base class to work for other non-ITimeable objects too, that's why I need the interface restriction on the Select method, and I also need it in order to access the Time property using generics.
Hope that clears the goal :)
P.S. My main concern is not visibility of the method in IntelliSense etc.. I'd just like to keep my base class working, while being able to access an interface-specified property through generics in it.
It depends on what you want.
Since the class is compiled once, and the magic with generics also relies on the runtime, there's no way to make a class that has some methods in some cases, and other methods in other cases. Either the methods are there, or they aren't.
So basically, there's no way to declare MyBaseClass so that the following happens:
MyBaseClass<Int32> bc;
bc. <-- intellisense does not show ShowThisMethod here
MyBaseClass<SomeTypeImplementingIMyInterface> bc2;
bc2. <-- intellisense DOES show ShowThisMethod here
... that is... by itself.
You can "trick" the compiler and intellisense into giving you what you're asking for, but know that this gives you other limitations and challenges that might need to be solved.
Basically, by adding an extension method to a static class declared alongside MyBaseClass, you can make intellisense, and the compiler, behave as if the method is only present for MyBaseClass when T has some specific rules, as you're asking for.
However, since the method in question will be a static method, defined outside of MyBaseClass, there's limits to how much of the internals of MyBaseClass you can access, and you can't access the method inside MyBaseClass, so it depends on what you want to accomplish and whether you can live with the limitations or not.
Anyway, here's the extension method. Note that you remove it completely from MyBaseClass at the same time:
public static class MyBaseClassExtensions
{
public static IQueryable<T> ShowThisMethod<T>(this MyBaseClass<T> mbc)
where T: class, IMyInterface
{
...
}
}
Also note that ShowThisMethod is redefining T in the context of ShowThisMethod. It is not the same T as defined by the class.
Specifying a different Type parameter where the new one inherits from the one defined by the class would be the best approach, though that ends up requring the caller to have to specify the generic Type twice.
No, it's not possible. Constraints are defined when they are declared. In this case, the method is not generic, the class is (it's a non-generic method of a generic class). So the constraints can be only declared on the class itself.
Will this do what you want? The method will be visible to anyone, but not necessarily useable...
public class MyBaseClass<T> where T: class
{
public IQueryable<R> ShowThisMethod() where R: T, IMyInterface
{
Debug.Assert(typeof(R) == typeof(T));
// stuff.
}
}
You could define another class that inherits MyBaseClass and redefine the constraint :
public MyOtherClass<T> : MyBaseClass<T> where T : class, IMyInterface
{
public IQueryable<T> ShowThisMethod()
{
// stuff.
}
}