I am certain that I simply do not know the name for what I am trying to do, otherwise my googling would be more successful. I currently only find results pertaining to interfaces with same named methods.
I have a few classes that inherit from a common base class and some implement an interface. I have methods accepting the base class or the interface as a parameter. I cannot compile since this causes ambiguity with the error
the call is ambiguous between the following methods or properties: DoThings(IQueryable<A>) and DoThings(IQueryable<B>)` on the call in ConcreteExecutionClass.
Furthermore, generics won't work because type constraints on generics do not make a unique method signature.
Is there a way (or an acceptable pattern) to force the execution to a specific method based on parameter types?
public abstract class A {
// some properties
}
public class ConcreteA : A {
// full implementation
}
public interface B {
// a property
}
public class ConcreteAB : A, B {
// full implementation
}
public abstract class ExecutionClass {
public IQueryable<A> DoThings(IQueryable<A> content){
return A.method().AsQueryable();
}
public IQueryable<B> DoThings(IQueryable<B> content){
return B.interfaceRequiredMethod().method().AsQueryable();
}
}
public class ConcreteExecutionClass : ExecutionClass {
public void Program(){
var objectList = new List<ConcreteAB>{/*....*/};
DoThings(objectList);
}
}
Each of the concrete classes has a class managing linq queries on lists of objects, which each call DoThings()
. The goal is to keep the actual implementation of DoThings()
transparent to the concrete classes.
I have attempted covariance in the interface, however have been unable to avoid inheriting A which forces down the first code path.
The code above is a simplification of the actual implementation. There are about 10 classes deriving solely from A
and 4 deriving from A
and B
.