Missed opportunity to use OfType¶
ID: cs/linq/missed-oftype
Kind: problem
Security severity:
Severity: recommendation
Precision: high
Tags:
- maintainability
- language-features
Query suites:
- csharp-security-and-quality.qls
Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository
Programmers often use as to iterate over a collection of one type of element that may contain some elements of another - possibly more specific - type. For example, <B> might refer to a collection of objects, some of which refer to an instance of D , a class derived from B. Programmers often write a loop to iterate over the collection and coerce each B in turn to D before using it.
Recommendation¶
This pattern works well and is also available as the OfType method in LINQ. It is better to use a library method in preference to writing your own pattern unless you have a specific need for a custom version. In particular, this makes the code easier to read by expressing the intent better and reducing the number of distinct variables in scope within the loop.
Example¶
In this example the programmer is only interested in the items in the array that are Dog s.
class MissedOfTypeOpportunity
{
class Animal { }
class Cat : Animal { }
class Dog : Animal
{
private string name;
public Dog(string name)
{
this.name = name;
}
public void Woof()
{
Console.WriteLine("Woof! My name is " + name + ".");
}
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<Animal> lst = new List<Animal> { new Dog("Rover"), new Cat(), new Dog("Basil") };
foreach (Animal a in lst)
{
Dog d = a as Dog;
if (d != null)
d.Woof();
}
}
}
This can be expressed far better by using the OfType method.
class MissedOfTypeOpportunityFix
{
class Animal { }
class Cat : Animal { }
class Dog : Animal
{
private string name;
public Dog(string name)
{
this.name = name;
}
public void Woof()
{
Console.WriteLine("Woof! My name is " + name + ".");
}
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<Animal> lst = new List<Animal> { new Dog("Rover"), new Cat(), new Dog("Basil") };
foreach (Dog d in lst.OfType<Dog>())
{
d.Woof();
}
}
}