Is static context always single in C#?

Question

I have a library that has a static field inside. I want to create an app and reference this library so I\'d have two instances of this static field. .Net runtime does not al

Answer 1

That's not as crazy as you think. In fact, you can achieve this using AppDomains.

Each AppDomain has its own storage location for static variables. So you can just create a second AppDomain in your process, and communicate between them using an object that inherits from MarshalByRefObject like in this MSDN example.

Answer 2

While Lucas' suggestion on AppDomains would work, alternatively you could create this effect using generics, as a class with different generic type arguments is treated as a different class, and therefore has its own static fields.

public class SomeClass<T>
{
    public static string SomeField;
}

Then:

SomeClass<int>.SomeField = "A";
SomeClass<string>.SomeField = "B";

Console.WriteLine(SomeClass<int>.SomeField);    // A
Console.WriteLine(SomeClass<string>.SomeField); // B

For example, the SomeClass<int> would be set in the library, whereas the SomeClass<string> would be your copy. Of course this would only work if you could change the library, or the library already used generics.

Answer 3

Both suggestions should work, but they are all terrific concerning architecture.

I a not aware about the context, but in your case is it possible to just create an aggregation class with a new property that is not static and just have two instances. This sound like a better way for me.

Everytime I have smart code, an alert starts in my head. Smart code is always too clever for a developer.