Using the "params" keyword for generic parameters in C#

Question

I came across the beautiful Func<T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, T10, T11, T12, T13, T14, T15, T16, TResult> delegate in C# .NET 4.5 today. I assume 16 was an arbitrary place to stop (what methods have more than 16 parameters?) but it got me thinking: is it possible in C# to specify that a generic type can have any number of type arguments? in a similar way that the params keyword for methods allows for any number of arguments for a method. Something like this:

public class MyInfiniteGenericType<params T[]> { ... } 

where inside the class you could then access the type arguments by enumerating through them or using T[index] in the same way that params allows within methods.

I've never had a use for this personally, but the Func delegate would be a perfect place to use it. There would be no need for 16 different types of Func!

So my question is, can this be done in any way in C#, and if not is this a silly idea?

Answer 1

is it possible in C# to specify that a generic type can have any number of type arguments?

No, C# doesn't have anything like that I'm afraid.

Fundamentally Func<T> and Func<T1, T2> are entirely unrelated types as far as the CLR is concerned, and there's nothing like params to specify multiple type arguments.

As for its utility: I can see cases where it could be useful, but I suspect they're rare enough to mean the feature doesn't cross the "benefit/cost" threshold. (Note that it would almost certainly require CLR changes too.)