Generic types API design
Coming from Java I am used to generics having type erasure at runtime and also wildcard types (like e.g.
I am working on a framework where I have types using generics and also API methods which declare parameters of these generic types. But in many cases the methods don't really have to care about the type parameters, which is when I in Java would have declared the method parameter using a wildcard, rather than adding a type parameter to the method signature.
Now I am wondering how this is typically approached in C#. What I ended up doing, but probably isn't what you are supposed to do, is that I declared an interface
Foo<?>) at design time. In C# the type parameters are reified and take some getting used to.I am working on a framework where I have types using generics and also API methods which declare parameters of these generic types. But in many cases the methods don't really have to care about the type parameters, which is when I in Java would have declared the method parameter using a wildcard, rather than adding a type parameter to the method signature.
Now I am wondering how this is typically approached in C#. What I ended up doing, but probably isn't what you are supposed to do, is that I declared an interface
IFoo without type parameters and then another one with type parameters as IFoo<T> : IFoo. Now I can declare method parameters of type IFoo (or IFoo[] or similar) when I don't need to call methods which require the type parameters. I suspect that this is probably more of an anti pattern and I would like to learn how to better design APIs in C#.