Question

I have a class Age with properties “AgeID” and “Name”, and this code:

    public static MvcHtmlString AgeToCommaSeparated(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, IEnumerable<Age> AgeList)
    {
        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        foreach (var age in AgeList)
        {
            sb.Append(age.Name);
            sb.Append(",");
        }

        return new MvcHtmlString(sb.ToString().TrimEnd(','));
    }

Then I have lots of other classes similiar to Age, like Gender with “GenderID” and “Name”.

Is there a way to make the AgeToCommaSeparated function generic so I can pass any class to it?

Answer 1

Why don’t you create a common interface, something like this:

    public interface ICommaSeparable
    {
        string Chunk { get; set; }
    }

    public class Age : ICommaSeparable
    {
        public string Chunk { get { return AgeID; } }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int AgeID { get; set; }
    }

    public class Gender : ICommaSeparable
    {
        public string Chunk { get { return GenderID ; } }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int GenderID { get; set; }
    }

    public static MvcHtmlString AgeToCommaSeparated(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, IEnumerable<ICommaSeparable> SeparableList)
    {
        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        foreach (var sep in SeparableList)
        {
            sb.Append(sep.Chunk);
            sb.Append(",");
        }

        return new MvcHtmlString(sb.ToString().TrimEnd(','));
    }