How do you programmatically find out if the ctor of a class invoked its base class ctor and with what arguments?
A derived class constructor always calls a base class constructor. This is required by the C# language specification.
To find out what arguments are passed, you might be able to ask the base class, if it saved them, but there is no universal way to do it.
Finding out which base class constructor got called is impossible for all code I've ever seen. The base class would have to save that information explicitly, but typically different constructors just use default values for some internal data.
Related
The title explains it all I believe.
In C#, I am now aware that regardless, constructors in derived classes will call a base class constructor whether it is an explicit call or an implicit default constructor. My question is why? I think it's because the derived class needs to create an object of the base class but why?
I think it's because the derived class needs to create an object of the base class but why?
An instance of a derived class is an instance of the base class. If you have a rule for what must happen when you construct an Animal, and you're constructing a Giraffe, then somehow you have to execute the rule for constructing an Animal. In C# that mechanism is "call a base class constructor".
A derived class is the base class plus extra things the derived class adds.
You still need some code that initializes the base class portion so you can add your extra parts on top. The call to the base constructor is where that initialization happens.
let's say the car is your abstract class and bmw,mazda,jeep are your driven classes.
you have fields: Name , Model,..
you have constroctor: car(),car(string model)
in car class, then when compiler doing memory allocation for object need to read abstract constructor to be aware of Name, Model.
this will call the default constructor. but you can use base("z4") to force calling overridden constructor in the abstract class.
As Scott Chamberlain said the derived class is something (plus some more features).
Of course an object can have behaviors in the constructor.
Anyway if you don't need to inherit them, you should structure your code in the right way,
you should leave base constructor empty, depends on your specific needs
I don't have any idea about this error please how I make that work?
The error appears because the base class does not have a default constructor. You need to define a constructor in the derived class, which gets the same parameters as the constructor in the base class, and invokes that base class constructor using the base keyword as explained here
I could not open the screenshot of CenterExamen class. The error happens becauase your base class CenterExamen does not have a default constructor. It does not mean like you need to have a default constructor in the base class. In such cases, when inheriting a class, the inherited class should instantiate the base class by passing the required parameters.
I have a base class Character which has several classes deriving from it. The base class has various fields and methods.
All of my derived classes use the same base class constructor, but if I don't redefine the constructor in my derived classes I get the error:
Error: Class "child class" doesn't contain a constructor which takes this number of arguments
I don't want to redefine the constructor in every derived class because if the constructor changes, I have to change it in every single class which, forgive any misunderstanding, goes against the idea of only writing code once?
You can use the following syntax to call the base class constructor from the classes that derive from it:
public DerivedClass() : base() {
// Do additional work here otherwise you can leave it empty
}
This will call the base constructor first, then it will perform any additional statements, if any, in this derived constructor.
Note that if the base constructor takes arguments you can do this:
public DerivedClass(int parameter1, string parameter2)
: base(parameter1, parameter2) {
// DerivedClass parameter types have to match base class types
// Do additional work here otherwise you can leave it empty
}
You can find more information about constructors in the following page:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/using-constructors
In a derived class, if a base-class constructor is not called explicitly by using the base keyword, the default constructor, if there is one, is called implicitly.
You do have to redeclare constructors, because they're effectively not inherited. It makes sense if you think of constructors as being a bit like static methods in some respects.
In particular, you wouldn't want all constructors to be automatically inherited - after all, that would mean that every class would have a parameterless constructor, as object itself does.
If you just want to call the base class constructor though, you don't need to write any code in the body of the constructor - just pass the arguments up to the base class as per Waleed's post.
If your base class starts requiring more information, it's natural that you should have to change all derived classes - and indeed anything calling the constructors of those classes - because they have to provide the information. I know it can seem like a pain, but it's just a natural consequence of what constructors do.
I had the same problem, and I solved it by replacing my constructor with a factory method like this:
A is the parent class.
public static T getChild<T>(int number) where T:A, new()
{
T child = new T();
T._number = number;
return child;
}
You can create a Child class with
Child b = A.getChild<Child>(2);
A kind of alternative could be to rely on a Dependency Injection container to initialize your objects, that way the that reference to the base class (could be the call to the base constructor or another initializer method) would "externalized" to the DI container.
I don't know if it makes sense to your case or not
I just read http://blog.gurock.com/articles/creating-custom-exceptions-in-dotnet/
I don't know when it is written. It says:
"Since C# unfortunately doesn’t inherit constructors of base classes, this new type only has the standard constructor with no parameters and is therefore relatively useless."
This says the same in 2010: C#: inheriting constructors
Is this still true?
EDIT: Following on from answers, I'm sure there would be a way around the default parameterless constructor. Are there other reasons for lack of constructor inheritance?
Constructors have never been inheritable in the entire lifetime of the C# language. That hasn't changed in C# 5.0: at the end of section 1.6.7.1 of the C# 5.0 spec, it still says:
Unlike other members, instance constructors are not inherited, and a class has no instance constructors other than those actually declared in the class. If no instance constructor is supplied for a class, then an empty one with no parameters is automatically provided.
So it still holds true today, and I imagine it will remain so in the foreseeable future.
You have to explicitly call the constructor of the base class, unless the base class defines a default constructor. So yes they are not inherited.
Which sometimes lead to a bunch of boiler plate code where you do nothing than pass arguments from one constructor to another
public class NegativArgument : Exception {
public NegativeArgument() : this("The number given was less than zero"){}
public NegativeArgument(string message) : this(message,null){}
public NegativeArgument(string message, Exception inner) : base:(message,inner){}
}
but what if you had an Exception type that should always have the same message? how would you solve that if the constructors were inherited? The exception class has a constructor that accepts a message so creating a new Exception type would in that case get that constructor too, not inheriting constructors makes it easy
public class NegativArgument : Exception {
public NegativeArgument() : base("The number given was less than zero"){}
}
If the base class does not have a default constructor you will have a compile error if you do not explicitly call a base class constructor.
Constructors are not inherited in C#.
If they were, then every class would have a default parameterless constructor (because all classes derive from Object and Object has a default parameterless constructor).
Many classes should only be constructed with specific values; this would be impossible to ensure if every class had a default parameterless constructor.
You should call them explicitly the constructor of the base classes. They are not inheritable.
Didn't change anything about them.
Check out : Constructors (C# Programming Guide)
From the spec §1.6.7.1:
Unlike other members, instance constructors are not inherited, and a
class has no instance constructors other than those actually declared
in the class. If no instance constructor is supplied for a class, then
an empty one with no parameters is automatically provided.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228593.aspx
This answer is based upon the section "Constructors are not inherited" near the bottom of this entry on Jon Skeet's blog.
Summary
There are many cases in which a derived class may require information beyond that contained in the base class. Jon gives the example of the FileInfo class which requires additional information to be well-defined. Namely, that of the file for which info is to be provided
Any suggested 'fix' for this would entail overriding things in a way that prevents constructing such derived objects using the inherited constructors. However, knowingly requiring derived classes to override their base classes in a way that makes them more restrictive goes against best practice. (see: this question for Jon's discussion of the Liskov Substitution principle and the importance of being able to use derived classes wherever their base can be used.)
Additionally, from just a maintenance perspective, forcing manual override of constructors would make it difficult to reason about future behavior should the base class constructors change, and would entail having to always check, and often modify, any derived classes when new constructors are added to the base. Even a few of these would be problematic; but in cases where there are dozens or more such classes (and derived classes of those classes, etc.), maintenance and QA will quickly become a nightmare.
In C#...
I'm designing a base class (can NOT use constructors for this), and I want to force any inheriting classes to implement a method to initialize their respective objects. I can expect that their initialization method may take an arbitrary number and type of parameters.
how would I declare this abstract method in the base, so that the children can implement any parametered variation of it? If it is not possible, could you suggest an alternative? Thank you.
updated details : the base class should be abstract, i need a method to act as a constructor (but I can't use a constructor to do it). The child class needs a way to initialize itself, and I was hoping to force an implementation with an (abstract?) method of my own
I think it is possible try this code in your base class
public abstract void Test(params object[] list);
now it will force to declare method in child class.
Hope this help.
In addition, you can use new Modifier to hide explicitly the same name methods, fields, ... of derived class
.NET framework 4.0 provide optional parameters and name arguments to deal with a various type of parameters Named and Optional Arguements