Question

public class abstract animal
{
     // many fields
     public string Name {get;set;}
     public int id {get; set;}
     // method, return self
     public abstract animal getAnimalByID( int _id)
     {
         // databse connection
         //get data from database and return an animal type

         return animal; <-- cannot work, "return this" can work
     }

} 



public class dog : animal
{
     public override dog getAnimalByID( int _id)
     {
          return (dog )base.getAnimalByID( _id);
     }
}

I have a abstract base class and get data from database. dog has more fields and functions than animals and I want to return dog data type from database.

problem 1:

return (dog )base.getAnimalByID( _id); return access base class error

problem 2:

(dog) returns error too

Answer 1

first class’s method cannot be declared as abstract if i want to use base at second class.

The rest works fine after i took away the abstract.