Calling Overridden Constructor and Base Constructor in C#

I have two classes, Foo and Bar, that have constructors like this:

class Foo
{
    Foo()
    {
      // do some stuff
    }

    Foo(int arg)
    {
      // do some other stuff
    }
}

class Bar : Foo
{
    Bar() : base()
    {
      // some third thing
    }
}

Now I want to introduce a constructor for Bar that takes an int, but I want the stuff that happens in Bar() to run as well as the stuff from Foo(int). Something like this:

Bar(int arg) : Bar(), base(arg)
{
  // some fourth thing
}

Is there any way to do this in C#? The best I have so far is putting the work done by Bar() into a function, that also gets called by Bar(int), but this is pretty inelegant.


I would re-chain constructors, so they are called like

Bar() : this(0) 
Bar(int) : Foo(int) initializes Bar
Foo(int) initializes Foo
Foo() : this(0) 

This is suitable, if parameterless constructors are assuming some kind of default value for int parameter of other constructor. If constructors are unrelated, you probably doing something wrong with your type, or maybe we need more information about what are you trying to achieve.


No, this isn't possible. If you use Reflector to examine the IL that's generated for each constructor, you'll see why -- you'd end up calling both of the constructors for the base class. In theory, the compiler could construct hidden methods to accomplish what you want, but there really isn't any advantage over you doing the same thing explicitly.


I would recommend changing your constructor chain to go from least specific to most specific.

class Foo
{
    Foo()
    {
      // do some stuff
    }

    Foo(int arg): this()
    {
      // do some other stuff
    }
}

class Bar : Foo
{
    Bar() : Bar(0)
    {
      // some third thing
    }

    Bar(int arg): base(arg)
    {
      // something
    }
}

Any creation of the Bar object will now call all 4 constructors. Constructor chaining should provide default values to more specific constructors, not the other way around. You should really look at what you are trying to accomplish and make sure what you are doing makes sense. Curt is right that there are technical reasons you can't do this, but there are also logical reasons why you shouldn't.


This is only thing I can think of...

 public class Foo
{
    public Foo()
    {
    }
    public Foo(int? arg): this()
    {
    }

}
public class Bar : Foo
{
    private int x;
    public Bar(): this(new int?()) // edited to fix type ambiguity
    {
        // stuff that only runs for paramerless ctor
    }
    public Bar(int? arg)
        : base(arg)
    {
        if (arg.HasValue)
        {
            // Do stuff for both parameterless and parameterized ctor
        }
        // Do other stuff for only parameterized ctor
    }
}