I am attempting to extend a List. When using Visual Studio there are the different code hints for all the functions I can use with a List object. How can I extend the functionality of the List to show my new function?
public class ListExtensionHelper<T> : System.Collections.Generic.List<T>
{
public List<T> AwesomeFunction<T>()
{
}
}
For the life of me I could not find anything online on how I would do it for a List
It sounds like you're looking for extension methods, rather than inheritance.
There are some really good examples here. There's also a really good library of extensions available here.
<soapbox>
One of my personal favorites that I use is this:
public static class StringExtensions
{
public static bool IsNullOrEmpty(this string s)
{
return string.IsNullOrEmpty(s);
}
}
It's ridiculously simple, but a huge pet peeve of mine is having to write:
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(someVariable))
as opposed to:
if (someVariable.IsNullOrEmpty())
For me it's just a matter of being a natural construct of my native language. The built-in method sounds like:
object verb subject
whereas mine sounds like:
subject verb
It's probably silly, but when I want to act upon a subject it just makes more sense for me to start with the subject :)
</soapbox>
If you are trying to add AwesomeFunction as an extension method to a regular List object, then you need to define an extension method in a static class:
public static class ListExtensions
{
public static List<T> AwesomeFunction<T>(this List<T> list)
{
}
}
Otherwise, the code you have should work; if you instantiate the ListExtensionHelper class, it should have all the functions of List as well as AwesomeFunction.
