How to implement a generic method(pattern)?

Question

Hi I have the following method public void ReadXmlFromFile(string path string fileName) { string filePath = Path.Combine(path fileName); XmlSerializer deserializer = new XmlSerializer( TipsProvider.TipsList.GetType() ); TextReader textReader = null; try { textReader = new StreamReader(filePath); TipsProvider.TipsList = ( List ) deserializer.Deserialize(textReader); } catch(Exception e) { } finally { if (textReader != null) textReader.Close(); } } But now I want to use this method to also read xml from anothe typeof object. The 3 bold lines is the objects that is hard coded in this method and should be generic. How do i implement this? Should i implement some kind of pattern? Br Morten

Vulpes · Answer

The first thing that strikes me with that method is that you're accessing an external field TipsProvider.TipsList which appears to be of type List . If you want to genericize this method then you'll need to make it self-contained by passing TipsProvider.TipsList as a ref parameter. So if the type parameter will always be a List of some type then you could do: public void ReadXmlFromFile (string path string fileName ref List list) { string filePath = Path.Combine(path fileName); XmlSerializer deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List )); TextReader textReader = null; try { textReader = new StreamReader(filePath); list = (List )deserializer.Deserialize(textReader); } catch(Exception e) { } finally { if (textReader != null) textReader.Close(); } } or if it could be any arbitrary type you could do: public void ReadXmlFromFile (string path string fileName ref T obj) { string filePath = Path.Combine(path fileName); XmlSerializer deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)); TextReader textReader = null; try { textReader = new StreamReader(filePath); obj = (T)deserializer.Deserialize(textReader); } catch(Exception e) { } finally { if (textReader != null) textReader.Close(); } } In either case you'd call it with: ReadXmlFromFile(path fileName ref TipsProvider.TipsList); The compiler would infer 'T' from that.