Generic delegate instances
- by Luc C
I wonder if C# (or the underlying .NET framework) supports some kind of "generic delegate instances": that is a delegate instance that still has an unresolved type parameter, to be resolved at the time the delegate is invoked (not at the time the delegate is created). I suspect this isn't possible, but I'm asking it anyway...
Here is an example of what I'd like to do, with some "???" inserted in places where the C# syntax seems to be unavailable for what I want. (Obviously this code doesn't compile)
class Foo {
public T Factory<T>(string name) {
// implementation omitted
}
}
class Test {
public void TestMethod()
{
Foo foo = new Foo();
??? magic = foo.Factory; // No type argument given here yet to Factory!
// What would the '???' be here (other than 'var' :) )?
string aString = magic<string>("name 1"); // type provided on call
int anInt = magic<int>("name 2"); // another type provided on another call
// Note the underlying calls work perfectly fine, these work, but i'd like to expose
// the generic method as a delegate.
string aString2 = foo.Factory<string>("name 1");
int anInt2 = foo.Factory<int>("name 2");
}
}
Is there a way to actually do something like this in C#? If not, is that a limitation in the language, or is it in the .NET framework?
