Question

I have a base class with a virtual method, and multiple subclasses that override that method.

When I encounter one of those subclasses, I would like to call the overridden method, but without knowledge of the subclass. I can think of ugly ways to do this (check a value and cast it), but it seems like there should be an in-language way to do it. I want the List to contain multiple subclasses within the same list, otherwise obviously I could just make a List.

EDIT: Fixed the comment in the code that was wrong, which lead to the very appropriate first answer I got 🙂

For instance:

Class Foo  {     public virtual printMe()     {         Console.Writeline('FOO');     } }  Class Bar : Foo  {     public override printMe()     {         Console.Writeline('BAR');     } }  List<Foo> list = new List<Foo>(); // then populate this list with various 'Bar' and other overriden Foos  foreach (Foo foo in list)  {     foo.printMe(); // prints FOO.. Would like it to print BAR }  

Answer 1

class Foo  {     public virtual void virtualPrintMe()     {         nonVirtualPrintMe();     }      public void nonVirtualPrintMe()     {         Console.Writeline('FOO');     } }  class Bar : Foo  {     public override void virtualPrintMe()     {         Console.Writeline('BAR');     } }  List<Foo> list = new List<Foo>(); // then populate this list with various 'Bar' and other overriden Foos  foreach (Foo foo in list)  {     foo.virtualPrintMe(); // prints BAR or FOO     foo.nonVirtualPrintMe(); // always prints FOO }