Type Argument Inference during Type Initialization

One of the least discussed topics about compiler and Generic Methods is its ability to infer the Type Arguments. For example, consider the following code.

public void Display<T>(T value)
{
Console.WriteLine(value);
}

A typical invocation of the code might look like following.

var value = 45;
Display<int>(value);

However, in some scenarios as above, the compiler is smart enough to allow you to skip the type argument from the generic method. For example, you could call the method as the following.

var value = 45;
Display(value);

This is because the compiler realizes you have passed an integer value as argument and it infers the type argument T as Int32.

This is great feature to have and allows you to do away with a lot of ceremony. However, the type inference is limited to Methods and doesn’t quite help you in Type Initialization. For example,

public class MyClass<T>
{

}

For initializing the above class, you would have to explicitly mention the Type Argument.

var instance = new MyClass<int>();

However, having said that, there is a easy-to-use pattern to work around the issue. If you were to inspect the Tuple static class, you might find some interesting methods there.

For example,

public static Tuple<T1> Create<T1>(T1 item1)
{
return new Tuple<T1>(item1);
}
public static Tuple<T1, T2> Create<T1, T2>(T1 item1, T2 item2)
{
return new Tuple<T1, T2>(item1, item2);
}

In the first glance, you might be temped to question the intend of the methods. What would one create a static method to create instances, when you could call the constructor directly. However, when closely examined, this is a great example of how to make type inference possible during initialization.

For example, for initializing a Tuple<int,int> using the constructor, you would have to pass the type arguments.

var instance = new Tuple<int,int>(3,4);
var instance = new Tuple(3,4); // This doesn't compile

However, the presence of static methods allows you to create the instance without passing the type arguments.

var instance = Tuple.Create(3,4);

This is a easy-to-use pattern if you ever want to support Type inference during initialization. Looking back at our sample class, we could now create helper methods as following.

public static class MyClass
{
public static MyClass<T> Create<T>(T value)
{
return new MyClass<T>();
}
}

The initialization code could now skip the type arguments, just like with the Tuples.

var instance = MyClass.Create(4);

C# over the years has reduced ceremony and boiler plate code and type inference is one yet another way to achieve the same.