Question

This must be either discussed or I’m being extremely stupid. There are plenty of similar threads as to why C# doesnt have MI, I have gone thru most. But I’m curious to know if C# isn’t already supporting it implicitly.

Since every type in .NET derive from System.Object I can write a class as

Person : object { }

Now if I have

Employee : Person { }

Isn’t it really

Employee : object, Person { }

1) Isn’t Employee class already inheriting from two classes?

All the problems of multiple inheritance exists here too right? Lets say I have this:

Person : object
{
    new public Type GetType()
    {
        return null;
    } 
}

Employee : object, Person 
{ 

}

2) Now if I call Employee.GetType() should it call Person.GetType() or object.GetType()? The confusion exists right. I feel isnt C# magically giving some sort of inheritance precedence for object class as its already in many languages in case of MI?

Answer 1

You’re misunderstanding inheritance.

Employee inherits Person, only.
Person inherits Object.

Employee inherits Object indirectly, through Person.
Because Person stands between Employee and Object, there are no MI issues.