Question

I am learning inheritance in VB.Net. A homework assignment asks me to write a base class with a name (String) property and a ToString method that displays the name. It also asks me to create some child classes of the base class and also implement a ToString method in those child classes. Is it possible for me to call the ToString method from both the child and base class?

Some example code is below:

My base class:

Public MustInherit Class MyBaseClass
    Public Property Name as String

    Public Overloads Function ToString() as String
        Return Name
    End Function
End Class

My child class:

Public Class ChildClass
    Inherits MyBaseClass

    Public Sub New()
        Name = "This is the name"
    End Sub

    public Overloads Function ToString() as string
        ' Is it possible to call my base class ToString and append the text to
        ' this ToString method? I realize I can simply access my Name property
        ' however this does not fulfill the requirements i was given
        return "Some text"
    End Function
End Class

Some code that uses the above code:

dim someObject as new ChildClass("Hello VB.Net ")
lblLabel.text = someObject.ToString()

Again, I am wondering if there is a way to call the ToString() method within the child class and then base class to generate output something like: “Hello VB.Net This is the name”

Answer 1

public Overloads Function ToString() as string 
    return MyBase.ToString() + "Some text"
End Function