Covariance and IList

Solution 1:

Update: from .NET 4.5 onwards there is IReadOnlyList<out T> and IReadOnlyCollection<out T> which are both covariant; The latter is basically IEnumerable<out T> plus Count; the former adds T this[int index] {get;}. It should also be noted that IEnumerable<out T> is covariant from .NET 4.0 onwards.

Both List<T> and ReadOnlyCollection<T> (via List<T>.AsReadOnly()) implement both of these.

It can only be covariant if it only has a get indexer, i.e.

public T this[int index] { get; }

But all main collections have {get;set;}, which makes that awkward. I'm not aware of any that would suffice there, but you could wrap it, i.e. write an extension method:

var covariant = list.AsCovariant();

which is a wrapper around an IList<T> that only exposes the IEnumerable<T> and the get indexer...? should be only a few minutes work...

public static class Covariance
{
    public static IIndexedEnumerable<T> AsCovariant<T>(this IList<T> tail)
    {
        return new CovariantList<T>(tail);
    }
    private class CovariantList<T> : IIndexedEnumerable<T>
    {
        private readonly IList<T> tail;
        public CovariantList(IList<T> tail)
        {
            this.tail = tail;
        }
        public T this[int index] { get { return tail[index]; } }
        public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator() { return tail.GetEnumerator();}
        IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() { return tail.GetEnumerator(); }
        public int Count { get { return tail.Count; } }
    }
}
public interface IIndexedEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable<T>
{
    T this[int index] { get; }
    int Count { get; }
}

Solution 2:

Here's a class I wrote to address this scenario:

public class CovariantIListAdapter<TBase, TDerived> : IList<TBase>
    where TDerived : TBase
{
    private IList<TDerived> source;

    public CovariantIListAdapter(IList<TDerived> source)
    {
        this.source = source;
    }

    public IEnumerator<TBase> GetEnumerator()
    {
        foreach (var item in source)
            yield return item;
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return GetEnumerator();
    }

    public void Add(TBase item)
    {
        source.Add((TDerived) item);
    }

    public void Clear()
    {
        source.Clear();
    }

    public bool Contains(TBase item)
    {
        return source.Contains((TDerived) item);
    }

    public void CopyTo(TBase[] array, int arrayIndex)
    {
        foreach (var item in source)
            array[arrayIndex++] = item;
    }

    public bool Remove(TBase item)
    {
        return source.Remove((TDerived) item);
    }

    public int Count
    {
        get { return source.Count; }
    }

    public bool IsReadOnly
    {
        get { return source.IsReadOnly; }
    }

    public int IndexOf(TBase item)
    {
        return source.IndexOf((TDerived) item);
    }

    public void Insert(int index, TBase item)
    {
        source.Insert(index, (TDerived) item);
    }

    public void RemoveAt(int index)
    {
        source.RemoveAt(index);
    }

    public TBase this[int index]
    {
        get { return source[index]; }
        set { source[index] = (TDerived) value; }
    }
}

Now you can write code like this:

List<Dog> dogs = new List<Dog>();
dogs.Add(new Dog { Name = "Spot", MaximumBarkDecibals = 110 });

IEnumerable<Animal> animals = dogs;
IList<Animal> animalList = new CovariantIListAdapter<Animal, Dog>(dogs);

animalList.Add(new Dog { Name = "Fluffy", MaximumBarkDecibals = 120 });

The changes are visible in both lists, because there's really still only 1 list. The adapter class just passes the calls through, casting items as necessary to achieve the desired IList<TBase> interface.

Obviously, if you add anything but Dogs to animalList, it will throw an exception, but this met my needs.

Solution 3:

Technically, there's the array collection. It's sort of broken in its variance, but it does what you ask.

IList<Animal> animals;
List<Dog> dogs = new List<Dog>();
animals = dogs.ToArray();

You will, of course, blow up rather spectacularly at runtime if you try to put a Tiger in the array anywhere.