Cast of ‘this’ to a type parameter¶
ID: cs/cast-of-this-to-type-parameter
Kind: problem
Security severity:
Severity: recommendation
Precision: high
Tags:
- reliability
- maintainability
- language-features
Query suites:
- csharp-security-and-quality.qls
Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository
Casting this to a type parameter may indicate an implicit type constraint. That is, the programmer wanted to express that this can be converted to the type parameter but could not find an appropriate way to do so. Instead, they rely on derived type to implement the correct interface.
Recommendation¶
The solution is to enforce the constraint using the mechanism of an abstract property on the base type. Each derived type must then implement this property, which makes the constraint checkable by the compiler and removes the need for a cast.
Example¶
In this example the programmer is relying on any concrete implementations of BaseNode to follow the correct design pattern. Derived1 does but Derived2 does not. The program will still compile but will crash if an attempt is made to access the Root property of an instance of Derived2.
class CastThisToTypeParameter
{
abstract class BaseNode<T> where T : BaseNode<T>
{
public abstract T Parent { get; }
public T Root
{
get
{
T cur = (T)this;
while (cur.Parent != null)
{
cur = cur.Parent;
}
return cur;
}
}
}
class Derived1 : BaseNode<Derived1>
{
private string name;
private Derived1 parent;
public Derived1(string name, Derived1 parent)
{
this.name = name;
this.parent = parent;
}
public override Derived1 Parent { get { return parent; } }
}
class Derived2 : BaseNode<Derived1>
{
private string name;
private Derived1 parent;
public Derived2(string name, Derived1 parent)
{
this.name = name;
this.parent = parent;
}
public override Derived1 Parent { get { return parent; } }
}
}
It would be better to enforce this using an abstract property.
class CastThisToTypeParameterFix
{
abstract class BaseNode<T> where T : BaseNode<T>
{
public abstract T Self { get; }
public abstract T Parent { get; }
public T Root
{
get
{
T cur = Self;
while (cur.Parent != null)
{
cur = cur.Parent;
}
return cur;
}
}
}
class ConcreteNode : BaseNode<ConcreteNode>
{
private string name;
private ConcreteNode parent;
public ConcreteNode(string name, ConcreteNode parent)
{
this.name = name;
this.parent = parent;
}
public override ConcreteNode Self { get { return this; } }
public override ConcreteNode Parent { get { return parent; } }
}
}