C#, implement 'static abstract' like methods

c# static abstract
Calmarius picture Calmarius · May 5, 2009 · Viewed 36.4k times · Source

I recently ran into a problem where it seems I need a 'static abstract' method. I know why it is impossible, but how can I work around this limitation?

For example I have an abstract class which has a description string. Since this string is common for all instances, it is marked as static, but I want to require that all classes derived from this class provide their own Description property so I marked it as abstract:

abstract class AbstractBase
{
    ...
    public static abstract string Description{get;}
    ...
}

It won't compile of course. I thought of using interfaces but interfaces may not contain static method signatures.

Should I make it simply non-static, and always get an instance to get that class specific information?

Any ideas?

Answer

leppie picture leppie · May 5, 2009

You cant.

The place to do this is with Attributes.

Eg

[Name("FooClass")]
class Foo
{
}

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