Can I add extension methods to an existing static class?

Question

I\'m a fan of extension methods in C#, but haven\'t had any success adding an extension method to a static class, such as Console.

For example, if I want to add an e

Answer 1

yes, in a limited sense.

public class DataSet : System.Data.DataSet
{
    public static void SpecialMethod() { }
}

This works but Console doesn't because it's static.

public static class Console
{       
    public static void WriteLine(String x)
    { System.Console.WriteLine(x); }

    public static void WriteBlueLine(String x)
    {
        System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Blue;
        System.Console.Write(.x);           
    }
}

This works because as long as it's not on the same namespace. The problem is that you have to write a proxy static method for every method that System.Console have. It's not necessarily a bad thing as you can add something like this:

    public static void WriteLine(String x)
    { System.Console.WriteLine(x.Replace("Fck","****")); }

or

 public static void WriteLine(String x)
    {
        System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Blue;
        System.Console.WriteLine(x); 
    }

The way it works is that you hook something into the standard WriteLine. It could be a line count or bad word filter or whatever. Whenever you just specify Console in your namespace say WebProject1 and import the namespace System, WebProject1.Console will be chosen over System.Console as default for those classes in namespace WebProject1. So this code will turn all the Console.WriteLine calls into blue insofar as you never specified System.Console.WriteLine.