C# Override with different parameters?

Question

Here is an example of what I am looking to do.

public class A
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(string a)
    {
      // perform something
    }
}
public         


        

Answer 1

When overriding a virtual method, you must keep the original "contract" of the method, which in your case is a string a variable.

In order to do what you want, you can create a virtual overload which takes two strings:

public class A
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(string a)
    {
      // perform something
    }
    public virtual void DoSomething(string a, string b)
    {
      // perform something
    }
}

public class B : A
{
    public override void DoSomething(string a, string b)
    {
      // perform something slightly different using both strings
    }
}

If what you want is to accept N strings in your method, you can use the params keyword:

public class A
{
    public virtual void DoSomething(params string[] allStrings)
    {
      // Do something with the first string in the array
      // perform something
    }
}

Answer 2

No, this won't work. When overriding the methods needs to have the same prototype.

Answer 3

No, this would be overloading. Since the logic would be 'slightly different' it sounds like you would need two different methods anyway? You could put your similar logic in a 3rd method and call that from both DoSomething(string A) and DoSomething(string A, string B)

Answer 4

Slight necro, but when you overload you can call the original method from the new one.

so

public class B : A {

    public virtual void DoSomething (string a, string b) {
        base.DoSomething(_a);
        //Do B things here
    }
}

This allows you to modify the method instead of completely redoing it :)

Answer 5

There is a way. It requires some code though. You create a master class fex. 'MachineParams'. Then create subclasses like 'MachineParamsGeneral', 'MachineParamsDetail'.

Your function can now be like:

public override void Setup(MachineParams p)
{
// since you know what subclass this is inside, you can simple cast
MachineParamsGeneral g = (MachineParamsGeneral)p;
float paramExample = p.paramExample;
}

You need to consider if this solution is "handy" enough for your scale.

A second solution:

public override void Setup(params object[] p ..)
{
// you need to know the arrangement of values inside the object array
float x = (float)p[0]; // not strictly speaking type-safe
}