Programming Forums > Application Development > C#

Darkhack · Jan 16th, 2006, 12:37 PM

This may seem really stupid, but I am currently working on a project and it was going find but I then decided to rewrite some of my classes to make it easier to manage. Rather than only seperating my functions/classes into different categories, I decided to also seperate them by "level". I have low-mid-high level functions. High uses the mid level as mid uses the low level. Basically a form of abstraction.

Anyways, I was wondering if it was possible (or come close) to have a parent class that can do anything its child classes can, rather than the reverse which is how normal inheritance works. For example...

(Toggle Plain Text)

Class Parent
{
  public void Print()
  {
	Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent");
  }
}

Class Child
{
  public void Run()
  {
	Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!");
  }
}

(Toggle Plain Text)

Parent p = new Parent();
p.Print();
p.Run()	/* OR */  p.Child.Run();

Would I simply declare my child's functions as static or would that work? I know this seems silly but it actually makes sense to me. I can seperate my classes into seperate files rather than having one giant file with thousands of lines of code and I can do stuff like "Earth.Asia.Japan.Tokyo" where function names are seperated into larger->smaller categories.

This scheme isnt nessisary for what I need though. Even "Earth.Tokyo" without all the inbetween stuff would work fine. Basically what I am asking is if it is possible to have a parent class that inherits everything from its children so that way I can simply have one class to worry about instead of creating instances of all these child classes.

Is my thinking incorrect though? Is their some law of programming that states why something like this might be bad practice and why I should define all the child classes seperately? If I'm way off track, please tell.

Thanks.

pistalwhipped · Jan 16th, 2006, 1:00 PM

There is a reason that inheritance only goes one way I cant really see why you would need a parent object to access methods of a child.

I think your code example is off too. If you are accessing Child from p then the code would have to look like:

(Toggle Plain Text)

Class Parent
{
  public void Print()
  {
	Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent");
  }

  Class Child
  {
    public void Run()
    {
	  Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!");
    }
  }
}

are you just trying to seperate out subclasses?

If you want Parent to access Childs methods simply have Parent inherit from Child.

(Toggle Plain Text)

Class Parent:Child //the naming is a little confusing...
{
  public void Print()
  {
	Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent");
  }
}

and you would access Childs method like this:

(Toggle Plain Text)

Parent p = new Parent();

p.Run();

i hope this helps

Darkhack · Jan 16th, 2006, 1:20 PM

That wasn't entirely what I was aiming for. My goal was to only have to be able to look after one object instead of creating a new object for each child class. Well, I'll stop being a baby and try having multiple objects (one for each child) and see if it works. I still think my idea wouldnt be a bad one in theory, but then again I may be wrong.

Thanks.

Arevos · Jan 16th, 2006, 5:05 PM

You may be thinking, perhaps, of inner classes.

(Toggle Plain Text)

class A {
    static void printTest() {
        System.out.println(test);
    }

    static class B {
        static String test = "Hello World";
    }
}

Then you could do something like:

(Toggle Plain Text)

A.B.test = "Goodbye World";
A.printTest();

Jan 16th, 2006, 12:37 PM	#1
Darkhack Hobbyist Programmer Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Kansas City Posts: 105 Rep Power: 3	Reverse Inheritance This may seem really stupid, but I am currently working on a project and it was going find but I then decided to rewrite some of my classes to make it easier to manage. Rather than only seperating my functions/classes into different categories, I decided to also seperate them by "level". I have low-mid-high level functions. High uses the mid level as mid uses the low level. Basically a form of abstraction. Anyways, I was wondering if it was possible (or come close) to have a parent class that can do anything its child classes can, rather than the reverse which is how normal inheritance works. For example... (Toggle Plain Text) Class Parent { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } } Class Child { public void Run() { Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!"); } } Class Parent { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } } Class Child { public void Run() { Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!"); } } (Toggle Plain Text) Parent p = new Parent(); p.Print(); p.Run() /* OR / p.Child.Run(); Parent p = new Parent(); p.Print(); p.Run() / OR / p.Child.Run(); Would I simply declare my child's functions as static or would that work? I know this seems silly but it actually makes sense to me. I can seperate my classes into seperate files rather than having one giant file with thousands of lines of code and I can do stuff like "Earth.Asia.Japan.Tokyo"* where function names are seperated into larger->smaller categories. This scheme isnt nessisary for what I need though. Even "Earth.Tokyo" without all the inbetween stuff would work fine. Basically what I am asking is if it is possible to have a parent class that inherits everything from its children so that way I can simply have one class to worry about instead of creating instances of all these child classes. Is my thinking incorrect though? Is their some law of programming that states why something like this might be bad practice and why I should define all the child classes seperately? If I'm way off track, please tell. Thanks.

Jan 16th, 2006, 1:00 PM	#2
pistalwhipped Newbie Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	There is a reason that inheritance only goes one way I cant really see why you would need a parent object to access methods of a child. I think your code example is off too. If you are accessing Child from p then the code would have to look like: (Toggle Plain Text) Class Parent { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } Class Child { public void Run() { Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!"); } } } Class Parent { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } Class Child { public void Run() { Console.WriteLine("Watch me Run!"); } } } are you just trying to seperate out subclasses? If you want Parent to access Childs methods simply have Parent inherit from Child. (Toggle Plain Text) Class Parent:Child //the naming is a little confusing... { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } } Class Parent:Child //the naming is a little confusing... { public void Print() { Console.WriteLine("I am the Parent"); } } and you would access Childs method like this: (Toggle Plain Text) Parent p = new Parent(); p.Run(); Parent p = new Parent(); p.Run(); i hope this helps

Jan 16th, 2006, 5:05 PM	#4
Arevos Programming Guru Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: England Posts: 1,499 Rep Power: 5	You may be thinking, perhaps, of inner classes. (Toggle Plain Text) class A { static void printTest() { System.out.println(test); } static class B { static String test = "Hello World"; } } class A { static void printTest() { System.out.println(test); } static class B { static String test = "Hello World"; } } Then you could do something like: (Toggle Plain Text) A.B.test = "Goodbye World"; A.printTest(); A.B.test = "Goodbye World"; A.printTest();

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Jan 16th, 2006, 1:20 PM	#3
Darkhack Hobbyist Programmer Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Kansas City Posts: 105 Rep Power: 3	That wasn't entirely what I was aiming for. My goal was to only have to be able to look after one object instead of creating a new object for each child class. Well, I'll stop being a baby and try having multiple objects (one for each child) and see if it works. I still think my idea wouldnt be a bad one in theory, but then again I may be wrong. Thanks.

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Programming Forums > Application Development > C#

Reverse Inheritance