Is there a C# generic constraint for "real number" types? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
C# generic constraint for only integers

Greets!

I'm attempting to set up a Cartesian coordinate system in C#, but I don't want to restrict myself to any one numerical type for my coordinate values. Sometimes they could be integers, and other times they could be rational numbers, depending on context.

This screams "generic class" to me, but I'm stumped as to how to constrict the type to both integrals and floating points. I can't seem to find a class that covers any concept of real numbers...

public class Point<T> where T : [SomeClassThatIncludesBothIntsandFloats?]  {
    T myX, myY;

    public Point(T x, T y) {
        myX = x;
        myY = y;
    }
}

Point<int> pInt = new Point<int>(5, -10);
Point<float> pFloat = new Point<float>(3.14159, -0.2357);

If I want this level of freedom, am I electing for a "typeof(T)" nightmare when it comes to calculations inside my classes, weeding out bools, strings, objects, etc? Or worse, am I electing to make a class for each type of number I want to work with, each with the same internal math formulae?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

You can't define such a constraint, but you could check the type at runtime. That won't help you for doing calculations though.

If you want to do calculations, something like this would be an option:

class Calculations<T, S> where S: Calculator<T>, new()
{
    Calculator<T> _calculator = new S();

    public T Square(T a)
    {
        return _calculator.Multiply(a, a);
    }

}

abstract class Calculator<T>
{
    public abstract T Multiply(T a, T b);
}

class IntCalculator : Calculator<int>
{
    public override int Multiply(int a, int b)
    {
        return a * b;
    }
}

Likewise, define a FloatCalculator and any operations you need. It's not particularly fast, though faster than the C# 4.0 dynamic construct.

var calc = new Calculations<int, IntCalculator>();
var result = calc.Square(10);

A side-effect is that you will only be able to instantiate Calculator if the type you pass to it has a matching Calculator<T> implementation, so you don't have to do runtime type checking.

This is basically what Hejlsberg was referring to in this interview where the issue is discussed. Personally I would still like to see some kind of base type :)

Answer 2

This is a very common question; if you are using .NET 3.5, there is a lot of support for this in MiscUtil, via the Operator class, which supports inbuilt types and any custom types with operators (including "lifted" operators); in particular, this allows use with generics, for example:

public static T Sum<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source) {
    T sum = Operator<T>.Zero;
    foreach (T value in source) {
        if (value != null) {
            sum = Operator.Add(sum, value);
        }
    }
    return sum;
}

Or for another example; Complex<T>

Answer 3

This is a known problem, since none of the arithmetic classes arrive from the same class. So you cannot restrict it.

The only thing you could do is

where T : struct

but thats not exactly what you want.

Here is a link to the specific issue.

Arithmetic types like int,double,decimal should implement IArithmetic<T>