Question

I can’t figure out what could be static here to cause that error below:

public bool OptionsMatch(Item item, ItemFavorite itemFavorite)
{
    bool isSame = true;

    switch (item.DispType)
    {
        case DispType.Dropdown:
        case DispType.Radio:
            isSame = String.Contains(item.Value);
            break;
        case DispType.ImageList:
            isSame = ListValuesMatch(item, itemFavorite);
            break;
    }

    return isSame;
}

Error: Cannot access non-static method ‘Contains’ in static context

DispType is an enum. And the rest are all non-static concrete type instances as well as the underlying class is not static either that contains this method.

Answer 1

string.Contains is not static, it is an instance method; i.e. it is called on an instance of a string, like so:

"something".Contains(item.Value);

This is because Contains requires two objects – the reference string, and the string to search for. You’ve only provided one (the string to search for) but not where to look.