Question

I would like to write a method that works sort of like this:

public class BaseClass {}
public class DerivedClass1 : BaseClass {}
public class DerivedClass2 : BaseClass {}

public class BaseClassCreator
{
    public static T Create<T>() where T : BaseClass
    {
        if( T is DerivedClass1 ) return new DerivedClass1();
        if( T is DerivedClass2 ) return new DerivedClass2();

        return null;
    }
}

I am getting compiler errors saying I can not converted DerivedClass1 to T. How do I need to write this method to do the following:

BaseClass x = BaseClassCreator.Create<DerivedClass1>();
BaseClass y = BaseClassCreator.Create<DerivedClass2>();

Answer 1

The is (and as) keywords operate on instances, not types. Im guessing what you actually wanted was

if(typeof(T) == typeof(DerivedClass1)) ....