extension methods with generics - when does caller need to include type parameters?

Posted by Greg on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Greg
Published on 2010-05-10T11:27:05Z Indexed on 2010/05/10 11:34 UTC
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Hi,

Is there a rule for knowing when one has to pass the generic type parameters in the client code when calling an extension method?

So for example in the Program class why can I (a) not pass type parameters for top.AddNode(node), but where as later for the (b) top.AddRelationship line I have to pass them?

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Create Graph
        var top = new TopologyImp<string>();

        // Add Node
        var node = new StringNode();
        node.Name = "asdf";
        var node2 = new StringNode();
        node2.Name = "test child";
        top.AddNode(node);
        top.AddNode(node2);


        top.AddRelationship<string, RelationshipsImp>(node,node2);  // *** HERE ***

    }
}


public static class TopologyExtns
{

 public static void AddNode<T>(this ITopology<T> topIf, INode<T> node)
    {
        topIf.Nodes.Add(node.Key, node);
    }

    public static INode<T> FindNode<T>(this ITopology<T> topIf, T searchKey)
    {
        return topIf.Nodes[searchKey];
    }

    public static void AddRelationship<T,R>(this ITopology<T> topIf,  INode<T> parentNode,  INode<T> childNode) 
        where R : IRelationship<T>, new()
    {
        var rel = new R();
        rel.Child = childNode;
        rel.Parent = parentNode;
    }
  }


public class TopologyImp<T> : ITopology<T>
{
    public Dictionary<T, INode<T>> Nodes { get; set; }
    public TopologyImp()
    {
        Nodes = new Dictionary<T, INode<T>>();
    }
}

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