Is it possible to structure a generic method so T is optional?

Question

Hard question to phrase, but if I have:

public class BunnyManager
{
    public Bunny<T> GetBunny<T>(string someJson)
    {
       return new Bunny<T>(someJson);
    }
}

public class Bunny<T>
{
   T parsedJson { get; set; }

    public Bunny<T>(string someJson)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(someJson))
            parsedJson = ConvertJsonStringToObject<T>(someJson);
    }
}

in some cases I want to get a Bunny object without any json, because the json string is null, so I don't care what T is.

In this case, can I create an overload or something to ignore T completely, or can I call GetBunny<null> or GetBunny<object>?

I'm wondering what the correct way to solve this might be.

Answer 1

You can have a non generic bunny class that the generic one inherits from.

public class BunnyManager
{
    public Bunny<T> GetBunny<T>(string someJson)
    {
       return new Bunny<T>(someJson);
    }

    public Bunny GetBunny()
    {
       return new Bunny();
    }
}

public class Bunny
{

}

public class Bunny<T> : Bunny
{
   T parsedJson { get; set; }

    public Bunny(string someJson)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(someJson))
            parsedJson = ConvertJsonStringToObject<T>(someJson);
    }
}

Answer 2

You can always create a non-generic base class

public class Bunny 
{
}

public class Bunny<T> : Bunny
{
}