Examples of usage of Generics in .Net (C#/VB.NET)

Simply, you declare a type or method with extra tags to indicate the generic bits:

class Foo<T> {
    public Foo(T value) {
        Value = value;
    }
    public T Value {get;private set;}
}

The above defines a generic type Foo "of T", where the T is provided by the caller. By convention, generic type arguments start with T. If there is only one, T is fine - otherwise name them all usefully: TSource, TValue, TListType etc

Unlike C++ templates, .NET generics are provided by the runtime (not compiler tricks). For example:

Foo<int> foo = new Foo<int>(27);

All Ts have been replaced with int in the above. If necessary, you can restrict generic arguments with constraints:

class Foo<T> where T : struct {}

Now Foo<string> will refuse to compile - as string is not a struct (value-type). Valid constraints are:

T : class // reference-type (class/interface/delegate)
T : struct // value-type except Nullable<T>
T : new() // has a public parameterless constructor
T : SomeClass // is SomeClass or inherited from SomeClass
T : ISomeInterface // implements ISomeInterface

Constraints can also involve other generic type arguments, for example:

T : IComparable<T> // or another type argument

You can have as many generic arguments as you need:

public struct KeyValuePair<TKey,TValue> {...}

Other things to note:

• static members etc are defined per generic type combination - so a static field on Foo<int> is separate to that on Foo<float>.
• methods can be generic too - try to avoid using the same names as the class uses, as you won't be able to disambiguate
• nested types inherit the generic types from their parents

for example:

class Foo<T> {
    class Bar<TInner> {} // is effectively Bar<T,TInner>, for the outer T
}

Example 1: You want to create triple class

Class Triple<T1, T2, T3>
{
   T1 _first;
   T2 _second;
   T3 _Third;
}

Example 2: A helper class that will parse any enum value for given data type

static public class EnumHelper<T>
{
   static public T Parse(string value)
   {
       return (T)Enum.Parse(typeof(T), value);
   }
}