Question

In my project I have a few functions in derived classes that are the same except for one section that is different in each.

I want to pull the method up to the base class.

The functions look like this:

func(parameters)
{
//COMMON BITS

if      (someVar == "value1")  { htmlFilename = line; }
else if (someVar == "value2") { subVideoLink = line; }
else if (someVar == "value3") { linksH2HeadingWritten = true; }

//COMMON BITS
}

where the center lines of the different functions all look like above but have different values for “someVar” and different variables in the “variable = line;” format.

This is the generalized form:

if (someVar == "CommandName") { variable = line; }

The idea I had was to send the function a Dictionary<string CommandName, ref string>… however it seems I can’t make a Dictionary with ref string in it…

I would then remove the boolean cases of the ‘variable’ by replacing them with string versions with values of “true” or “false”.

Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

A better approach would be to define a virtual (or abstract) method in the base class that you call in func. Then in each of your subclasses you can override the method with the specific instructions and func will use the subclass’s behavior.

public class MyBase
{
    protected virtual void DoCommand() { throw new NotImplementedException(); }

    public void Func()
    {
        ...
        DoCommand();
        ...
    }
}

public class MySubClass : MyBase
{
    protected override void DoCommand()
    {
        ...
    }
}