Generics

• These are known as General Data types
• Using generics, we will write generic functions and generics classes
• Generics are introduced in .NET framework version 2.0
• Namespaces related to Generics are System.Collection.Generic, System.Collections.  Object Model, these namespaces contain generic collection classes that will allow working with Generic Types
• Generic interfaces that will provide sorting and equality comparisons are present in System namespace
• Generics can be implemented with classes, structures, interfaces, methods, Events and Delegates
• The data types used in Generics can be obtained with the help of Reflection at runtime
• Generics are used to avoid function overloading, when Data types of arguments are changed
• To work with generics, we use two things,
• Place holder represented by < >
• Type parameter
• Always type parameter should be enclosed within the place holder, like <type parameter>

Non-Generic Method

public Display(string S)

   {

          Code….

   }

Generic Method

public Display<G>(string S)

{

          Code…

}

Calling: Display<string>(“welcome”);

Calling: Display<int>(10);

Calling: Display<double>(10.5);

Passing Multiple Data Types to a Generic Function

In the above examples, we passed only single data type to generic function

If at all we want to pass multiple data types to a generic function at once, we declare the function like…

  Public void display <TP1,TP2>(TP1a, TP2b)

  {

          Code…

  }

Calling:

Display<int, int>(9,99.9);

Display<int, string>(9, “Sampath Kumar Vaddepally”);

Display<string, string>(“Vaddepally”,”Sampath”);