Calling a static method on a generic type parameter

Question

In this case you should just call the static method on the constrainted type directly. C# (and the CLR) do not support virtual static methods. So:

T.StaticMethodOnSomeBaseClassThatReturnsCollection

...can be no different than:

SomeBaseClass.StaticMethodOnSomeBaseClassThatReturnsCollection

Going through the generic type parameter is an unneeded indirection and hence not supported.

To elaborate on a previous answer, I think reflection is closer to what you want here. I could give 1001 reasons why you should or should not do something, I'll just answer your question as asked. I think you should call the GetMethod method on the type of the generic parameter and go from there. For example, for a function:

public void doSomething<T>() where T : someParent
{
    List<T> items=(List<T>)typeof(T).GetMethod("fetchAll").Invoke(null,new object[]{});
    //do something with items
}

Where T is any class that has the static method fetchAll().

Yes, I'm aware this is horrifically slow and may crash if someParent doesn't force all of its child classes to implement fetchAll but it answers the question as asked.

The only way of calling such a method would be via reflection, However, it sounds like it might be possible to wrap that functionality in an interface and use an instance-based IoC / factory / etc pattern.

It sounds like you're trying to use generics to work around the fact that there are no "virtual static methods" in C#.

Unfortunately, that's not gonna work.