C# passing generic type to another class

Question

I wanna know is there any way to pass generic type to another Class as an argument. In other words. I have SomeClass<T> and AnotherClass. I wanna AnotherClass to have an instance field of Type <T> who would be initialized in constructor.

(I want SomeClass to be list of AnotherClass objects. Another Class would have 3 instance fields reference to previous AnotherClass object reference to next AnotherClass object and a T type field.

If you're looking for runtime type deduction, as in not making your class generic and making a member of the class of a variant type, I don't believe that's possible (out of the box) with C#. You can do it in a makeshift way where the constructor takes in an object, and stores both the object and the Type of the object. — Will Custode, Mar 18 '13 at 21:34
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2107845/generics-in-c-using-type-of-a-variable-as-parameter — MethodMan, Mar 18 '13 at 22:02
To me, this question does not look like a duplicate of the one referenced above the original question. In _this_ question, the type would be known at compile time. It is about enforcing that related classes use the same actual type for the generic type parameter when used. — R. Schreurs, Aug 28 '14 at 10:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 18 '13 at 21:31

1

Sounds like you're making a generic container. You need something like:

class Container<T>
{
    public T Value;

    public Container( T rhs )
    {
        Value = rhs;
    }
}

That's basic generics in C#. If you provide more description, I can better answer your question, but based on the info provided, this is what you're looking for.

edited Mar 18 '13 at 21:31

Jonathan Wood

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answered Mar 18 '13 at 21:30

Will Custode

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Ok but how can i pass ListClass generic type to Container class? – user2184057 Mar 18 '13 at 21:34
public Container( List list ) where ListClass of type T shares the same underlying type as Container. So if they both share the same T, you can pass a List of T into a Container of T. – Will Custode Mar 18 '13 at 21:39
Thank you very much i think i understand it and looks good for me. – user2184057 Mar 18 '13 at 21:42
Glad to hear it! Can you mark this as the selected answer? – Will Custode Mar 18 '13 at 21:42

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 18 '13 at 21:32

1

class MyClass<T> {
    public List<T> myList;

    public MyClass() {
        this.myList = new List<T>();
    }
}

Like that? I'm not sure I 100% understand the question.

answered Mar 18 '13 at 21:32

Mike Caron

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C# passing generic type to another class

2 Answers2