Question

What is the best solution to this problem? I’m trying to create a function that has several optional parameters of class types for which null is a meaningful value and cannot be used as a default. As in,

public void DoSomething(Class1 optional1, Class2 optional2, Class3 optional3)
    {
        if (! WasSpecified(optional1)) { optional1 = defaultForOptional1; }
        if (! WasSpecified(optional2)) { optional2 = defaultForOptional2; }
        if (! WasSpecified(optional3)) { optional3 = defaultForOptional3; }

        // ... do the actual work ...
    }

I can’t use Class1 optional1 = null because null is meaningful. I can’t use some placeholder class instance Class1 optional1 = defaultForOptional1 because of the compile-time constant requirement for these optional parameters I’ve come up with the following options:

1. Provide overloads with every possible combination, which means 8 overloads for this method.
2. Include a Boolean parameter for each optional parameter indicating whether or not to use the default, which I clutters up the signature.

Has anyone out there come up with some clever solution for this?

Thanks!

edit: I ended up writing a wrapper class for so I didn’t have to keep repeating Boolean HasFoo.

    /// <summary>
    /// A wrapper for variables indicating whether or not the variable has
    /// been set.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
    public struct Setable<T>
    {
        // According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa288208%28v=vs.71%29.aspx,
        // "[s]tructs cannot contain explicit parameterless constructors" and "[s]truct
        // members are automatically initialized to their default values."  That's fine,
        // since Boolean defaults to false and usually T will be nullable.

        /// <summary>
        /// Whether or not the variable was set.
        /// </summary>
        public Boolean IsSet { get; private set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// The variable value.
        /// </summary>
        public T Value { get; private set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// Converts from Setable to T.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="p_setable"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static implicit operator T(Setable<T> p_setable)
        {
            return p_setable.Value;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Converts from T to Setable.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="p_tee"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static implicit operator Setable<T>(T p_tee)
        {
            return new Setable<T>
            {
                IsSet = true
              , Value = p_tee
            };
        }
    }

Answer 1

I would at least consider creating a new type for the parameter:

public void DoSomething(DoSomethingOptions options)

… where DoSomethingOptions could look like this:

public class DoSomethingOptions
{
    private Class1 class1;
    public bool HasClass1 { get; private set; }

    public Class1 Class1 
    {
        get { return class1; }
        set
        {
            class1 = value;
            HasClass1 = true;
        }
    }

    ... for other properties ...
}

Then you can call it with:

DoSomething(new DoSomethingOptions { Class1 = null, Class2 = new Class2() });

You don’t end up with an exponential set of overloads, and you can still call it reasonably compactly.

This is similar to the approach that Process takes with ProcessStartInfo.