base() and this() constructors best practices

Question

Under what conditions am I supposed to make the :base() and :this() constructor calls following my constructor\'s parentheses (or even in other pl

Answer 1

Use base when there is inheritance, and a parent class already provides the functionality that you're trying to achieve.

Use this when you want to reference the current entity (or self), use it in the constructor's header/signature when you don't want to duplicate functionality that is already defined in another constructor.

Basically, using base and this in a constructor's header is to keep your code DRY, making it more maintainable and less verbose

Here's an absolutely meaningless example, but I think it illustrates the idea of showing how the two can be used.

class Person
{
    public Person(string name)
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("My name is " + name);
    }
}

class Employee : Person
{
    public Employee(string name, string job)
        : base(name)
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("I " + job + " for money.");
    }

    public Employee() : this("Jeff", "write code")
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("I like cake.");
    }
}

Usage:

var foo = new Person("ANaimi");
// output:
//  My name is ANaimi

var bar = new Employee("ANaimi", "cook food");
// output:
//  My name is ANaimi
//  I cook food for money.

var baz = new Employee();
// output:
//  My name is Jeff
//  I write code for money.
//  I like cake.