C# - Keyword usage virtual+override vs. new

Question

I always find things like this more easily understood with pictures:

Again, taking joseph daigle's code,

public class Foo
{
     public /*virtual*/ bool DoSomething() { return false; }
}

public class Bar : Foo
{
     public /*override or new*/ bool DoSomething() { return true; }
}

If you then call the code like this:

Foo a = new Bar();
a.DoSomething();

NOTE: The important thing is that our object is actually a Bar, but we are storing it in a variable of type Foo (this is similar to casting it)

Then the result will be as follows, depending on whether you used virtual/override or new when declaring your classes.

The "new" keyword doesn't override, it signifies a new method that has nothing to do with the base class method.

public class Foo
{
     public bool DoSomething() { return false; }
}

public class Bar : Foo
{
     public new bool DoSomething() { return true; }
}

public class Test
{
    public static void Main ()
    {
        Foo test = new Bar ();
        Console.WriteLine (test.DoSomething ());
    }
}

This prints false, if you used override it would have printed true.

(Base code taken from Joseph Daigle)

So, if you are doing real polymorphism you SHOULD ALWAYS OVERRIDE. The only place where you need to use "new" is when the method is not related in any way to the base class version.

Here's some code to understand the difference in the behavior of virtual and non-virtual methods:

class A
{
    public void foo()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("A::foo()");
    }
    public virtual void bar()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("A::bar()");
    }
}

class B : A
{
    public new void foo()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("B::foo()");
    }
    public override void bar()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("B::bar()");
    }
}

class Program
{
    static int Main(string[] args)
    {
        B b = new B();
        A a = b;
        a.foo(); // Prints A::foo
        b.foo(); // Prints B::foo
        a.bar(); // Prints B::bar
        b.bar(); // Prints B::bar
        return 0;
    }
}

The new keyword actually creates a completely new member that only exists on that specific type.

For instance

public class Foo
{
     public bool DoSomething() { return false; }
}

public class Bar : Foo
{
     public new bool DoSomething() { return true; }
}

The method exists on both types. When you use reflection and get the members of type Bar, you will actually find 2 methods called DoSomething() that look exactly the same. By using new you effectively hide the implementation in the base class, so that when classes derive from Bar (in my example) the method call to base.DoSomething() goes to Bar and not Foo.

Beyond just the technical details, I think using virtual/override communicates a lot of semantic information on the design. When you declare a method virtual, you indicate that you expect that implementing classes may want to provide their own, non-default implementations. Omitting this in a base class, likewise, declares the expectation that the default method ought to suffice for all implementing classes. Similarly, one can use abstract declarations to force implementing classes to provide their own implementation. Again, I think this communicates a lot about how the programmer expects the code to be used. If I were writing both the base and implementing classes and found myself using new I'd seriously rethink the decision not to make the method virtual in the parent and declare my intent specifically.