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 allow to reference the same library twice, but I wonder is it possible to overcome this limitation?

I'm not allowed to change the library, but I can copy/rename it.

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.