Question

Lets say I wish to be able to render different view logic for two different types, both are store items/products that will be used in search result views etc. Ultimately I would want the objects ordered according to a price property which both have, but of course they are still different types so I wonder if it is possible to order different object types in a list by using a property value of the same type on each?

I have a Product type and ProductCombo type.

Is it more optimal to store them in the model class as such (Probably can’t order them then):

public class
{

public List<Product> ProductList {get; set;}

public List<ProductCombo> ProductComboList {get; set;}

}

Or

public class
{

public List<object> StoreItems {get; set;}

}

If I use the above 2nd option I would of course have to unbox each object, get the type and decide what action to take for said type in the view. I think this is my best choice ? Considering that I would want to order the items in the List<object> by their decimal type price property.

Also another crude way to do it would be this I am guessing.

public class StoreItem
{
public Product product {get; set;}

public ProductCombo productCombo {get; set;}

public double itemPrice {get; set;} 

}

And then just store in List<StoreItem>
setting the itemPrice when doing a foreach on
each object returned from the database.

Answer 1

Why not do something like this

public interface IPricedItem
{
    double Price { get; }
}

class Product : IPricedItem { ... }
class ProductCombo : IPricedItem { ... }

public class Whatever
{
    public List<IPricedItem> StoreItems { get; set; }
}