Can a Custom C# object contain a property of the same type as itself?

Question

If I have created the following Employee object (simplified)...

 public class Employee
    {
        public Employee()
        {       
                


        

Answer 1

Specifically on the issue of construction (I've +1'd Odeds answer) - as you say constructing an instance in the constructor is a bad move.

But then ask yourself - why would you ever need to anyway. In your Manager/Employee case - you can't always be sure that an employee always has a manager, and if they don't then you shouldn't be using a newed empty instance to signify that, but a null.

When your type will have public get/set accessors on the properties, generally you're likely to be loading these object trees from some external source, in which case you have nothing to worry about. Equally, you can have a constructor that accepts other Employee instances for Manager/Employee relationships etc.

You should also be checking for circular relationships in that constructor as well - i.e. an employee can't be someone's manager and their employee - try walking the child->parent relationship for that and see if it ever ends!