Question

The constructor for my class has three variables passed to it:

public MyClass(int Id, String Name, DateTime StartDate)

But, StartDate might be passed into the variable as a String or as a DateTime object.

Should I create two different constructors one specifying DateTime for StartDate and one as String? Or, should I make the type Dynamic and determine what it is at run time and handle it then? I ask because my class has five dates and if I were to write constructors for every different combination, that would be way too much code.

Answer 1

Define an overload of the constructor that calls your default constructor:

class MyClass
{
    public MyClass(int id, string name, DateTime startDate)
    {
    }

    public MyClass(int id, string name, string startDate)
        : this(id, name, DateTime.Parse(startDate))
    {
    }
}

I would only create a constructor that accepts all as DateTime objects and an overload that accepts all as strings. I would ignore any other combination. In fact, I would only accept DateTime.

Accepting a dynamic type would result in a poor interface.