C# inheritance. Derived class from Base class

Question

I have a base class

public class A   
{
    public string s1;
    public string s2;
}

I also have a derived class :

public         


        

Answer 1

You could create a generic clone method in class A:

     public T Clone() where T : A, new() {
          return new T() { a = this.a, b = this.b};
     }

Or if you want to make the cloning extendable:

     public T Clone() where T : A, new() {
          var result = new T();
          this.CopyTo(result);
          return result;
     }

     protected virtual void CopyTo(A other) {
          other.a = this.a;
          other.b = this.b;
     }

You use it like this:

     A  a = new A();
     // do stuff with a
     // Create a B based on A:
     B b = a.Clone();

Please note: in your example, both the new A(), and the MemberwiseClone will create a new object of type A.

If you do not want to code the copy method yourself, you could look at a tool like AutoMapper.