Question

I’m really new to c# programming,so please correct me if I am wrong at my terminologies.

I would just like to ask, if it is possible to use 2 different classes from the same object.the code goes like this:

    //from the Animal Class;
  public void Run()
  {  
     int counter = 0;
     string input = "Beagle";
     string input2 = "Fox Terrier";
    Dog[] al = new Dog[10];
    do
    {
    al[counter] = new Dog();
    al[counter].validateAnimal(input);
    al[counter] = new Breed();
    Breed br = (Breed)al[counter];
    br.validateBreed(input2);
    }while(counter < 10)
 }   
    //Dog Class
    //Dog : Animal
    public void validateDog(string In)
    {
    if(In == "Beagle")
    {
    Console.WriteLine("Ok");
    }
    }

//breed class 
// Breed : Dog
public void validateBreed(string In)
{
if(In == "Fox Terrier")
{
Console.WriteLine("Great");
}
}

What I want to do is run both the validateDog and validateBreed while it is being run in the main class. I also need to have Breed be a derived class of Dog,and Dog be a derived class of animal. There seems to be no syntax error. but the validateBreed doesn’t show.

What seems to be the problem?

Answer 1

need to have Breed be a derived class of Dog

This is a wrong requirement. Breed is not a ‘kind of dog’, breed is a property of Dog.
Instead of creating a derived class, you should create a property Breed in Dog class.

You could list all available breeds in an enum or define a class for it.

public enum Breed { Beagle, Husky }

public class Dog
{
    public Dog(Breed breed)
    {
        this.Breed = breed;
    }

    public Breed Breed { get; private set; }
}

Notice that breed is being passed in the constructor and cannot be modified outside Dog class since dogs usually don’t change breeds.

UPDATE:

You should post your whole code. Hard to tell what you’re doing now.
From your sample this should work:

var breed = new Breed();
breed.validateDog("");
breed.validateBreed("");

as both methods are public.

You might want to define a virtual method validate is base class and override it in derived classes.