Question

I really want to do this…

 public class BaseController<T> where T : IPageModel, Controller

But visual studio doesnt like it. Controller is a class from the MVC. and I page model ensures acess to some model stuff. Have I got the syntax wrong?

Answer 1

The correct syntax would be:

public class BaseController<T>: Controller where T : IPageModel

Everything that follows the where keyword is considered as generic constraint declaration. In your case you want to have your class derive from Controller, so you start by indicating this first and at the end you specify the generic constraints.

Now your actual controllers could derive from this base controller:

public class FooController: BaseController<Foo>
{
    ...
}

where obviously Foo must implement IPageModel which is enforced by the generic constraint:

public class Foo: IPageModel
{
    ...
}