use subclass field in inherited method

Question

Hi I can't figure out how to get a method of an abstract class to refer to the values of a field stored in the subclasses. Example in pseudo-code: class Parent{ field _Description = I'm the parent; void PrintDescription(){ Console.WriteLine(this._Description); ) } class Child: Parent{ field _Description = I'm the child; } If I instantiate the child class and call its PrintDescription() method it prints I'm the parent How can I tell the 'PrintDescription()' method in the base class to always use the subclass's value for the field '_Description'? Thanks.

Andrew · Answer

Thanks I should have mentioned that the idea was not to have to rewrite the functions I'm hoping to inherit. These classes are for collections of objects each of which stores a database table name and list of column names and a few other things. There will be a dozen methods in the base class which should all behave the same in the inherited classes but just refer to the values of the fields in the instances of those subclasses. The whole point is that I don't want to define those methods in multiple places when they do exactly the same thing. I suppose I could override just one method which obtains the field values from 'this' in the subclass...

Danatas Gervi · Answer

class ParentClass { string Desc = I m in Parent Class; public virtual void Display() { MessageBox.Show(Desc); } } class ChildClass : ParentClass { string Desc= I m in Child Class ; public override void Display() { MessageBox.Show(this.Desc); } } Previos post - this is not overriding it was hiding example. This is not so good. (The compiler will warn you method ... hided ... use new operator .

Kirtan Patel · Answer

Hi Just Oveeride the Method in Child Class class ParentClass { string Desc = I m in Parent Class; public void Display() { MessageBox.Show(Desc); } } class ChildClass : ParentClass { string Desc= I m in Child Class ; public void Display() { MessageBox.Show(this.Desc); } }