Question

Is there a way to generate a compiler warning if a method is used outside of a class, but not if it is used inside the class?

Reason: class has some basic behaviour that can be done ahead of time in all but a few method overload circumstances. The idea was to say, it’s fine to do this, but you need to be aware of a few things about how this class works.

Answer 1

One approach is to use the #pragma directive.

In your class with the ‘raw’ method, add the following line at the top:

#pragma warning disable 0612

Mark your ‘raw’ method with the [Obsolete()] attribute.

So long as your class is the only class declared in the file with the pragma directive, any call to the raw method within that class will not raise a compiler warning. Calls made from other classes (files) will still raise a compiler warning similar to this:

c:\projects\ConsoleApplication1\ConsoleApplication1\Program.cs(13,13):
warning CS0612: ‘ConsoleApplication1.Class1.Test()’ is obsolete

e.g.

Program.cs

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Class1 c = new Class1();
            c.Test(); // call the raw method but with a compiler warning
        }
    }
}

Class1.cs

#pragma warning disable 0612

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Class1
    {
        [Obsolete()]
        public void Test()
        {
             // the 'raw' method
        }

        private void CallTest()
        {
            Test(); // call the raw method without a compiler warning
        }
    }
}

When compiled, I get one compiler warning in Program.cs, not in Class1.cs

Health warning – this will suspend compiler warnings for calls made within Class1 to obsolete methods in other classes as well.