Question

In the following piece of code (C# 2.0):

public abstract class ObjectMapperBase< T > where T : new()
{
    internal abstract bool UpdateObject( T plainObjectOrginal,
                                         T plainObjectNew,
                                         WebMethod fwm,
                                         IDbTransaction transaction );
}

Inheritor example:

public abstract class OracleObjectMapperBase< T > : ObjectMapperBase< T > where T : new()
{
    internal override bool UpdateObject( T plainObjectOrginal,
                                         T plainObjectNew,
                                         WebMethod fwm,
                                         IDbTransaction transaction )
    {
        // Fancy Reflection code.
    }
}

What does the where keyword do?

Answer 1

it is a constraint for generics

MSDN

so the new() constraint says it must have a public parameterless constructor