Need workaround for restriction of virtual, abstract static members for .NET implementation of Facebook Flux

Question

I've looked at a number of Flux implementations in .NET, and think that this approach is pretty swell:

• It uses static members instead of enums, making XAML nicer
• No need to convert to/from enum types (cleaner code)
• Easy integration with almost any pub/sub mechanism.

That being said, I want to keep the static property-to-string coding technique, but I can't make the following work:

public class BitnameTypesBase
{
   // I want to override this in base classes.. but can't 
    public static string ChainName;

    public static string GET_BITNAME = "get_bitname_" + ChainName;
    public static string SEND_BITNAME = "send_bitname_" + ChainName;
    public static string QUERY_BITNAME = "query_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

public class BitcoinBitName :  BitnameTypesBase
{
   // Ouch, can't override field or properties 
    override public static string ChainName = "Bitcoin";

    public static string MySpecialAction = "special_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

public class OthercoinBitName :  BitnameTypesBase
{
   // Ouch, can't override field or properties
    override public static string ChainName = "something new";

    public static string MySpecialAction = "special_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

Question

• Is there something in the language that will permit this?
• Is there any pre compilation script I can do that will permit this?
• Is there any Fody Plugin that I can use that could help (I didn't see one)

Answer 1

You can't override a static member, but you can hide them by using the new modifier. For exaple:

public class BitnameTypesBase
{
    public static string ChainName;

    public static string GET_BITNAME = "get_bitname_" + ChainName;
    public static string SEND_BITNAME = "send_bitname_" + ChainName;
    public static string QUERY_BITNAME = "query_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

public class BitcoinBitName :  BitnameTypesBase
{
    public static new string ChainName = "Bitcoin";
    public static string MySpecialAction = "special_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

public class OthercoinBitName : BitnameTypesBase
{
    public static new string ChainName = "something new";
    public static string MySpecialAction = "special_bitname_" + ChainName;
}

And now:

Console.WriteLine(BitcoinBitName.MySpecialAction);
Console.WriteLine(OthercoinBitName.MySpecialAction);

Will output:

special_bitname_Bitcoin
special_bitname_something new