Define a generic that implements the + operator [duplicate]

This is a pretty commonly requested new feature for C#: the ability to specify more generic parameter constraints than the ones we already have. Operators are among the most frequently asked. However, C# does not currently support this.

Possible workarounds:

• Pass a delegate to any method that needs to do addition. This is the most type-safe option, but of course it’s annoying if you need to call such a method often. For example:

  public class Generic<T> {
      public void DoSomething(T anItem, T anotherItem, Func<T, T, T> add) {
          // instead of
          Blah(anItem + anotherItem);
          // have to write:
          Blah(add(anItem, anotherItem));
      }
  }
  
  Generic<int> genInt = ...;
  // and then instead of ...
  genInt.DoSomething(1, 2);
  // have to write:
  genInt.DoSomething(1, 2, (a, b) => a + b);
  

• Declare your own interface IAddable. Then you can use it as a generic type parameter constraint, but obviously you can’t use int as the parameter then. You would have to use a struct of your own that contains just an int and which implements IAddable:

  public interface IAddable<T> {
      T Add(T other);
  }
   
  public struct Integer : IAddable<Integer> {
      public int Value;
      public Integer(int value) { Value = value; }
      public Integer Add(Integer other) { return new Integer(Value + other.Value); }
  }
  
  // then instead of
  Generic<int> blah = ...;
  // have to write:
  Generic<Integer> blah = ...;
  

• dynamic. Another possible workaround is to use dynamic, but this is rather hacky and completely unsafe: it will let you pass in any type and call any method or operator, and only crash at runtime, not at compile-time.