Question

I have a class called Location and it can either be Location<IClub> or Location<IRestaurant>.

I get a record from a database and that record then specifies whether this location is a restaurant or a club.

I need to create Location based on a string value within the record.

I have tried doing this;

        object topLoc = null ;

        if (record.type == "club")
            topLoc = new Location<IClub>();

but I cannot access any of Location‘s properties.

I also can’t create the object in an if statement as when you leave the if the object will be out of scope.

Answer 1

It sounds like generics are not the tool you need. Rather than using generics to annotate the kind of location, consider using an enum.

public enum LocationKind
{
    Restaurant,
    Club
}

Location location = new Location(LocationKind.Club);
// set up & use location as you see fit; expose the LocationKind through a
// property or something else along those lines