Method overloads which differ only by generic constraint

Question

I\'ve run into a bit of a problem, which I simply cannot find a good work-around to.

I want to have these 3 overloads:

public IList GetList&         


        

Answer 1

what about this?

public IList<T> GetList<T>(string query) where T : new()
{
  // whatever you need to distinguish, this is a guess:
  if (typeof(T).IsPrimitiveValue)
  {
    GetPrimitiveList<T>(query);
  }
  else if (typeof(T) == typeof(string))
  {
    GetStringList<T>(query);
  }
  else
  {
    GetEntityList<T>(query);
  }

}

private IList<T> GetStringList<T>(string query)

private IList<T> GetPrimitiveList<T>(string query)

private IList<T> GetEntityList<T>(string query)

Answer 2

As you note; there aren't any good options for this. You might consider different names (rather than overloads) - GetStringList etc.

However, I wonder whether it would be simpler to drop the constraint. A single type-check with "as" isn't exactly "heavy" type-casting, and it might save a lot of pain.