In C# how can I create an IEnumerable<T> class with different types of objects>

Question

In C# how can I create an IEnumerable<T>class with different types of objects

For example:

Public class Animals
{

Public class dog{}

Public class cat{}

Public class sheep{}

}

I want to do some thing like:

Foreach(var animal in Animals)
{
Print animal.nameType
}

Answer 1

public class Animal {

}

public class Dog : Animal {

}

public class Cat : Animal {

}


List<Animal> animals = new List<Animal>();

animals.Add(new Dog());
animals.Add(new Cat());

You can then iterate over the collection via:

foreach (var animal in animals) {
    Console.WriteLine(animal.GetType());
}

Answer 2

another approach if you wanted a named collection (instead of using a a List<T>):

// animal classes
public class Animal
{
    public String Name { get; set; }
    public Animal() : this("Unknown") {}
    public Animal(String name) { this.Name = name; }
}
public class Dog : Animal
{
    public Dog() { this.Name = "Dog"; }
}
public class Cat : Animal
{
    public Cat() { this.Name = "Cat"; }
}

// animal collection
public class Animals : Collection<Animal>
{

}

Implementation:

void Main()
{
    // establish a list of animals and populate it
    Animals animals = new Animals();
    animals.Add(new Animal());
    animals.Add(new Dog());
    animals.Add(new Cat());
    animals.Add(new Animal("Cheetah"));

    // iterate over these animals
    foreach (var animal in animals)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(animal.Name);
    }
}

Here you extend off the foundation of Collection<T> which implements IEnumerable<T> (so foreach and other iterating methods work from it).