How do I override List's Add method in C#?

Question

I am currently looking to make my own collection, which would be just like a regular list, except that it would only hold 10 items. If an item was added when there were alre

Answer 1

First, you can't override Add and still have polymorphism against List, meaning that if you use the new keyword and your class is cast as a List, your new Add method won't be called.

Second, I suggest you look into the Queue class, as what you are trying to do is more of a queue than it is a list. The class is optimized for exactly what you want to do, but does not have any sort of a size limiter.

If you really want something to act like a List but work like a Queue with a maximum size, I suggest you implement IList and keep an instance of a Queue to store your elements.

For example:

public class LimitedQueue : IList
{
  public int MaxSize {get; set;}
  private Queue Items = new Queue();
  public void Add(T item)
  {
    Items.Enqueue(item);
    if(Items.Count == MaxSize)
    {
       Items.Dequeue();
    }
  }
  // I'll let you do the rest
}