Is there a generic constraint I could use for the + operator?
There are no such devices in C#. A few options are available, though:
- in C# 4.0 and .NET 4.0 (or above), use
dynamic
, which supports+
but offers no compile time checking - in .NET 3.5 (or above), MiscUtil offers an
Operator
class which makes operators available as methods - again, without any compile-time checking
So either:
return (dynamic)left.Evaluate(context) + (dynamic)right.Evaluate(context);
or
return Operator.Add(left.Evaluate(context), right.Evaluate(context));
The Type parameter constraints in C# are very limited and is listed here. So the answer is no as far as compile time check goes. If T is a type that you create and manage, one way to go about it would be to
interface IAddable
{
IAddable Add(IAddable foo);
}
and implement IFoo for all your types and use where T: IAddable
as constraint and use Add()
instead of +
Using a generic constraints you can force T
- to be a reference type or a value type
- to inherit from a certain class
- to implement certain interface
- to have parameterless constructor
But that's all. You can't force the existence of the static operator+
on it.