Extensions methods are a new feature of C# 3.0 and they are easier to use than they first appear.
An extension method is a method that is external to an existing class but appears as if it were a method on that class.
The rules for creating an extension method are simple.
- Create a static method
- The first parameter of the static method should be the type of the class you wish to extend
- Precede the parameter type of this first parameter with the "this" keyword.
- Call the method as if it were a method of the class. Omit the first parameter.
An example should clarify this. Assume we have a class Customer with properties FirstName and LastName as shown below
public class Customer
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
We can create a new static class MyExtensions with a static method GetFullName that returns the formatted first and last name of the customer. We do so with the following code
public static class MyExtensions
{
public static string GetFullName(this Customer cust)
{
string custName = cust.FirstName + " " + cust.LastName;
return custName.Trim();
}
}
Notice the parameter with the "this" keyword. That parameter format tells the compiler that this is an extension method and that it should extend the Customer class. As long as MyExtensions is in the same namespace or in a namespace available to our code (via the "using" statement), we can call this new extension method with the following code
Customer cust
= new Customer
{ FirstName = "David",
LastName = "Giard"
};
string fName = cust.GetFullName();
Console.WriteLine(fName);
The code above outputs:
David Giard
As you can see in the above code, it looks as if the GetFullName method is part of the Customer class.
We can add parameters to our extension methods as we would to any other method. The first parameter (with the “this” keyword) is always used to specify the class we are extending. All other parameters act just like normal parameters. The following extension method accepts a parameter “salutation”.
public static string GetGreeting(this Customer cust, string salutation)
{
string custName = cust.FirstName + " " + cust.LastName;
custName = custName.Trim();
return salutation + “ “ + custName + ":";
}
Although the extension method has two parameters, we only need to pass the second parameter when calling it, as shown
Customer cust = new Customer { FirstName = "David", LastName = "Giard" };
string greeting = cust.GetGreeting("Dear");
Console.WriteLine(greeting);
The code above outputs:
Dear David Giard:
In our examples, we were adding extension methods to a class that we just created. Of course, in this case, it would have been simpler to just modify the original class. But extension methods are more useful if you are working with someone else’s class and modifying the source code is not an option. Extension methods often offer a simpler solution than inheriting from an existing class.
The real power of extension methods comes from the fact that you can even add methods to sealed classes. It is difficult to add functionality to a sealed class because we cannot inherit from it. Change the Customer class to sealed and re-run the code to prove that it still works.
public sealed class Customer
Here is the all code in the above sample
using System;
namespace TestExtensionMethods
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Customer cust = new Customer { FirstName = "David", LastName = "Giard" };
string fn = cust.GetFullName();
Console.WriteLine(fn);
string greeting = cust.GetGreeting("Dear");
Console.WriteLine(greeting);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public sealed class Customer
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
public static class MyExtensions
{
public static string GetFullName(this Customer cust)
{
string n = cust.FirstName + " " + cust.LastName;
return n.Trim();
}
public static string GetGreeting(this Customer cust, string salutation)
{
string custName = cust.FirstName + " " + cust.LastName;
custName = custName.Trim();
return salutation + " " + custName + ":";
}
}
}
You can download the sample code at TestExtensionMethods.zip (24.26 KB)