I am trying to figure out the exact meaning of the words Covariance
and Contravariance
from several articles online and questions on StackOverflow, and from what I can understand, it's only another word for polymorphism.
Am I correct with the above statement? Or have I got it wrong ?
It's certainly related to polymorphism. I wouldn't say they're just "another word" for polymorphism though - they're about very specific situations, where you can treat one type as if it were another type in a certain context.
For instance, with normal polymorphism you can treat any reference to a Banana
as a reference to a Fruit
- but that doesn't mean you can substitute Fruit
every time you see the type Banana
. For example, a List<Banana>
can't be treated as a List<Fruit>
because list.Add(new Apple())
is valid for List<Fruit>
but not for List<Banana>
.
Covariance allows a "bigger" (less specific) type to be substituted in an API where the original type is only used in an "output" position (e.g. as a return value). Contravariance allows a "smaller" (more specific) type to be substituted in an API where the original type is only used in an "input" position.
It's hard to go into all the details in a single SO post (although hopefully someone else will do a better job than this!). Eric Lippert has an excellent series of blog posts about it.