What is the best way to define a static property which is defined once per sub-class?

Question

I wrote the following console app to test static properties:

using System;

namespace StaticPropertyTest
{
    public abstract class BaseClass
    {
                 


        

Answer 1

Two possible approaches:

• Use attributes; decorate each subclass with an attribute, e.g.

  [MyProperty(5)]
  public class DerivedAlpha
  {
  }
  
  [MyProperty(10)]
  public class DerivedBeta
  {
  }
  

  That only works when they're effectively constants, of course.

• Use a dictionary:

  var properties = new Dictionary
  {
      { typeof(DerivedAlpha), 5) },
      { typeof(DerivedBeta), 10) },
  };
  

EDIT: Now that we have more context, Ben's answer is a really good one, using the way that generics work in C#. It's like the dictionary example, but with laziness, thread-safety and simple global access all built in.