C# generics with MVVM, pulling the T out of

Question

My Model is a generic class that contains a (for example) Value property which can be int, float, string, bool, etc. So naturally this class is represe

Answer 1

C# generics won't allow generic type as type parameter:

ObservableCollection>

Above is not only illegal in C#, but also makes no sense because it would break static type constraints.

I'm guessing what you really are trying to do is:

class ViewModel : IMyViewModel {...}

new ObservableCollection()

than you need some kind of factory that would produce IMyViewModel instances based on IModel runtime type:

public IMyViewModel CreateMyViewModel( IModel model){
    if (model is Model)
        return new ViewModel(model as Model);
    if (model is Model)
        return new ViewModel(model as Model);
    ...etc..
}

thus, having a

IEnumarable models = ...

you can get

var myVMs = 
    from m in models select CreateMyViewModel(m);

myCollection = new ObservableCollection(myVMs);