Question

I have some classes as below, i have implemented the Equals(Object) method for almost all of them. But i don’t know how to write GetHashCode() . As far I used these data types as value type in a Dictionary Collection, i think i should override GetHashCode().

1.I don’t know how to implement GetHashCode() with logic of Equals(Object).

2.There are some derived classes, if i override GetHashCode() and Equals(Object) for base class ( Param ), is it still necessary to override it for childs?

class Param
{
    ...
    public Int16 id { get; set; }
    public String name { get; set; }
    ...
    public override bool  Equals(object obj)
    {
        if ( obj is Param){
            Param p = (Param)(obj);
            if (id > 0 && p.id > 0)
                return (id == p.id);
            else if (name != String.Empty && p.name != String.Empty)
                return (name.equals(p.name));
            else
                return object.ReferenceEquals(this, obj);
        }
        return false;
    }
}  
class Item
{
    public int it_code { get; set; }
    public Dictionary<String, Param> paramAr { get; set; }
    ...
    public override bool Equals(Object obj)
    {
        Item im = new Item();
        if (obj is Item)
            im = (Item)obj;
        else 
            return false;

        if (this.it_code != String.Empty && im.it_code != String.Empty)
            if (this.it_code.Equals(im.it_code)) 
                return true;

        bool reParams = true;
        foreach ( KeyValuePair<String,Param> kvp in paramAr ){
            if (kvp.Value != im.paramAr[kvp.Key]) {
                reParams = false;
                break;
            }
        }
        return reParams;
    }
}
class Order
{

    public String or_code { get; set; }
    public List <Item> items { get; set; }
    ...
    public override bool Equals( Object obj ){
        Order o = new Order();
        if (obj is Order)
            o = (Order)obj;
        else
            return false;

        if (this.or_code != String.Empty && o.or_code != String.Empty)
            if (this.or_code.Equals(o.or_code))
                return true;
        bool flag = true;
        foreach( Item i in  items){
            if (!o.items.Contains(i)) { 
                flag = false;
                break;
            }
        }
        return flag;
    }
}

EDIT:
i get this warning:

Warning : ‘Item’ overrides Object.Equals(object o) but does not
override Object.GetHashCode()

Answer 1

Firstly, as I think you understand, wherever you implement Equals you MUST also implement GetHashCode. The implementation of GetHashCode must reflect the behaviour of the Equals implementation but it doesn’t usually use it.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.object.gethashcode.aspx – especially the “Notes to Implementers”

So if you take your example of the Item implementation of Equals, you’re considering both the values of id and name to affect equality. So both of these must contribute to the GetHashCode implementation.

An example of how you could implement GetHashCode for Item would be along the lines of the following (note you may need to make it resilient to a nullable name field):

public override GetHashCode()
{
    return id.GetHashCode() ^ name.GetHashCode();
}

See Eric Lippert’s blog post on guidelines for GetHashCode – http://ericlippert.com/2011/02/28/guidelines-and-rules-for-gethashcode/

As for whether you need to re-implement GetHashCode in subclasses – Yes if you also override Equals – as per the first (and main) point – the implementation of the two must be consistent – if two items are considered equal by Equals then they must return the same value from GetHashCode.

Side note:
As a performance improvement on your code (avoid multiple casts):

if ( obj is Param){
    Param p = (Param)(obj);

Param p = obj as Param;
if (p != null) ...