Question

This could be a flawed design pattern, but I thought I would ask to be sure I am doing it the only way possible.

This works:

public static class StuffManager
{
    public static readonly StuffDict Stuff = new StuffDict();
}

public class StuffDict : IDictionary<string, string>
{
    // custom dictionary stuff
}

Here a user has to type:

string athing = StuffManager.Stuff["key"]

.

This is what I am wondering about….

public static class StuffManager : IDictionary<string, string>
{
    // custom dictionary stuff
}

If this worked, a user would instead type:

string athing = StuffManager["key"]

I’m fine if the answer is “no” I just want confirmation that the second pattern is either not possible or a bad idea. If it is relevant, this is for use as a sort-of plugin in a 3rd party application where a user would add my .cs files than be a user from inside the same application.

Thank you.

Answer 1

No, that’s not possible.

It doesn’t make sense for a static class to inherit from a non-static class. Any inherited instance members would still be instance members, and couldn’t be used from the static class.