Enums and inheritance
- by devoured elysium
I will use (again) the following class hierarchy:
Event
and all the following classes inherit from Event:
SportEventType1 SportEventType2 SportEventType3 SportEventType4
I have originally designed the Event class like this:
public abstract class Event
{
public abstract EventType EventType { get; }
public DateTime Time { get; protected set; }
protected Event(DateTime time) {
Time = time;
}
}
with EventType being defined as:
public enum EventType {
Sport1,
Sport2,
Sport3,
Sport4
}
The original idea would be that each SportEventTypeX class would set its correct EventType. Now that I think of it, I think this approach is totally incorrect for two reasons:
If I want to later add a new
SportEventType class I will have to
modify the enum
If I later decide to remove one
SportEventType that I feel I won't
use I'm also in big trouble with the
enum.
I have a class variable in the Event
class that makes, afterall,
assumptions about the kind of
classes that will inherit from it,
which kinda defeats the purpose of
inheritance.
How would you solve this kind of situation? Define in the Event class an abstract "Description" property, having each child class implement it? Having an Attribute(Annotation in Java!) set its Description variable instead? What would be the pros/cons of having a class variable instead of attribute/annotation in this case? Is there any other more elegant solution out there?
Thanks
