Question

i use generic properties on my project,but i dont know,is there any disadvantage use them,please tell me a scenario,they have a disadvantage?my part of code below.

public class GenericResult<T>
{
    public T Data { get; set; }
    public bool IsSuccess { get; set; }
    public string Message { get; set; }
}

public GenericResult<int> AddCategory(TCategory tCategory)
{
    GenericResult<int> result = new GenericResult<int>();

    //business logic validation,dont make sense,only example :)
    if (tCategory.Name.Lenght > 100)
    {
        result.IsSuccess = false;
        result.Message = "Category Name length is too long";
        result.Data = 0;
    }

    //handle .net runtime error//may be database is not aviable.
    try
    {
        result.Data = this.catalogRepository.AddCategory(tCategory);
        result.IsSuccess = true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        result.Data = 0;
        result.IsSuccess = false;
        result.Message = ex.Message;
    }
    return result;
}

public GenericResult<IEnumerable<TCategory>> GetCategoryHierarchy(TCategory parentCategory)
{
    GenericResult<IEnumerable<TCategory>> result = new GenericResult<IEnumerable<TCategory>>();
    try
    {
        IEnumerable<TCategory> allCategories = catalogRepository.GetAllCategories();
        result.Data = GetCategoryHierarchy(allCategories, parentCategory);
        result.IsSuccess = true;

    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        result.IsSuccess = false;
        result.Data = null;
        result.Message = ex.Message;
    }
    return result;
} 

Answer 1

If you don’t want to throw an exception but prefer to return a result containing either the error or the value i.e. a MayBe that’s fine in some situations. But to be honest in this situation I’d prefer simply throwing/passing through the exception.

I’d prefer returning an immutable struct as MayBe instead of a mutable class like you did. It’s very similar to Nullable<T>, except it works on reference types and can store an error. Something like:

public struct MayBe<T>
{
    private T value;
    private Exception error;

    public bool HasValue{get{return error==null;}}
    public T Value
    {
      if(error!=null)
        throw error;
      else
        return value;
    }

    public static MayBe<T> CreateError(Exception exception)
    {
      return new MayBe<T>(default(T),exception);
    }

    public static MayBe<T> CreateValue(T value)
    {
      return new MayBe<T>(value,null);
    }

    public static implicit operator MayBe<T>(T value)
    {
        return CreateValue(value);
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        if(HasValue)
            return "Value: "+Value.ToString();
        else
            return "Error: "+Error.GetType().Name+" "+Error.Message;
    }
}

Your code becomes

public MayBe<int> AddCategory(TCategory tCategory)
{
    try
    {
       return this.catalogRepository.AddCategory(tCategory);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return MayBe<int>.CreateError(ex);
    }

    return result;
}

public MayBe<IEnumerable<TCategory>> GetCategoryHierarchy(TCategory parentCategory)
{
    try
    {
        IEnumerable<TCategory> allCategories = catalogRepository.GetAllCategories();
        return allCategories;

    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return MayBe<int>.CreateError(ex);
    }

    return result;
}

One problem I see with this implementation is that exceptions are not completely immutable. That can cause problems if the same MayBe<T> throws on multiple threads. Perhaps someone can suggest a better implementation.