Question

I am creating a C# library with some reusable code and was trying to create a method inside a method. I have a method like this:

public static void Method1()
{
   // Code
}

What I would like to do is this:

public static void Method1()
{
   public static void Method2()
   {
   }
   public static void Method3()
   {
   }
}

Then I could choose either Method1.Method2 or Method1.Method3. Obviously the compiler isn’t happy about this, any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

This answer was written before C# 7 came out. With C# 7 you can write local methods.

No, you can’t do that. You could create a nested class:

public class ContainingClass
{
    public static class NestedClass
    {
        public static void Method2()
        {
        } 

        public static void Method3()
        {
        }
    }
}

You’d then call:

ContainingClass.NestedClass.Method2();

or

ContainingClass.NestedClass.Method3();

I wouldn’t recommend this though. Usually it’s a bad idea to have public nested types.

Can you tell us more about what you’re trying to achieve? There may well be a better approach.