Is there an “anonymous” generic tag in C#, like '?' in Java?

Question

In Java, one can declare a variable parameterised by an \"unknown\" generic type, which looks like this:

Foo x;

Is there an equiva

Answer 1

The short answer is no. There isn't an equivalent feature in C#.

A workaround, from C# from a Java developer's perspective by Dare Obasanjo:

In certain cases, one may need create a method that can operate on data structures containing any type as opposed to those that contain a specific type (e.g. a method to print all the objects in a data structure) while still taking advantage of the benefits of strong typing in generics. The mechanism for specifying this in C# is via a feature called generic type inferencing while in Java this is done using wildcard types. The following code samples show how both approaches lead to the same result.

C# Code

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic; 

class Test{

    //Prints the contents of any generic Stack by 
    //using generic type inference 
    public static void PrintStackContents(Stack s){
        while(s.Count != 0){
            Console.WriteLine(s.Pop()); 
        } 
    }

    public static void Main(String[] args){

    Stack s2 = new Stack(); 
    s2.Push(4); 
    s2.Push(5); 
    s2.Push(6); 

    PrintStackContents(s2);     

    Stack s1 = new Stack(); 
    s1.Push("One"); 
    s1.Push("Two"); 
    s1.Push("Three"); 

    PrintStackContents(s1); 
    }
}

Java Code

import java.util.*; 

class Test{

    //Prints the contents of any generic Stack by 
    //specifying wildcard type 
    public static void PrintStackContents(Stack s){
        while(!s.empty()){
            System.out.println(s.pop()); 
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){

    Stack  s2 = new Stack (); 
    s2.push(4); 
    s2.push(5); 
    s2.push(6); 

    PrintStackContents(s2);     

    Stack s1 = new Stack(); 
    s1.push("One"); 
    s1.push("Two"); 
    s1.push("Three");   

    PrintStackContents(s1); 
    }
}