Pass different type of objects to the same method

Question

Hi All,

I have a method commonMethod which takes Customer object as param. The logic is same for both Customer and Order class. Instead of rewriting the same code for Order class how to reuse it.

public class Customer
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class Order
{
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Product { get; set; }
}

public string commonMethod(Customer c)
{
common logic for Customer and Order objects
}

Answer

I think that it depends on details. For example, you can write this:

public string commonMethod( Customer c)
{
    return commonMethod( c.ID, c.Name);
}

public string commonMethod( Order o)
{
    return commonMethod( o.ID, o.Product);
}

private string commonMethod( int ID, string text)
{
    common logic . . .
}

Answer

You can consider using generics.

    public static class MyClass  
    {  
        public static string CommonMethod(T t)  
        {  
            .......  
        }  
    }

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer

Another option

public class Base
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
}

Your classes

public class Customer : Base
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class Order : Base
{
    public string Product { get; set; }
}

Common class

public class Operations
{
    public static string Common(object sender) =>  sender switch
        {
            Customer customer => $"Customer id: {customer.Id} Name: {customer.Name}",
            Order order => $"Order id: {order.Id} Product: {order.Product}",
            _ => "Unknown"
        };
}

Now the above is conceptual, this may make more sense if not use to a switch expression

public static string Common(object sender)
{
    var result = "";
    if (sender is Customer customer)
    {
        result = $"Customer id: {customer.Id} Name: {customer.Name}";

    }
    else if (sender  is Order order)
    {
        result = $"Order id: {order.Id} Product: {order.Product}";
    }

    return result;
}

Test it

Customer customer = new Customer() {Id = 1, Name = "Adams"};
Debug.WriteLine(Operations.Common(customer));

Order order = new Order() {Id = 12, Product = "Phone"};
Debug.WriteLine(Operations.Common(order));

When using a switch expression or if statement you can call on say validation methods and or perform actions.

EDIT
Here the DoSomethingWith can be expanded to do whatever and if an unknown type is passed throw an exception

public class Operations
{
    public static string Common(object sender) => sender switch
    {
        Customer customer => DoSomethingWithCustomer(customer),
        Order order => DoSomethingWithOrder(order),
        _ => throw new Exception("Unknown type")
    };

    public static string DoSomethingWithCustomer(Customer customer) => $"Customer id: {customer.Id} Name: {customer.Name}";
    public static string DoSomethingWithOrder(Order order) => $"Customer id: {order.Id} Product: {order.Product}";
}

Pass different type of objects to the same method

3 answers