Creating an abstract generic method

Question

I have a C# class with a method such as below:

public class MyType
{
    public MyType Clone()
    {
        var clone = (MyType)MemberwiseClone();

        // Do some other stuff here with the clone's properties

        return clone;
    }
}

I have a bunch of other classes where I want to implement the Clone method so I was thinking I could create an abstract base class where I could define the Clone method generically so I don't have to put a concrete implementation in each class.

I would think this is possible but I haven't worked too much with generics and my attempts to do this in the past (months ago, so discarded my code out of frustration) haven't been successful.

Is this possible? If so, how could it be done?

Answer 1

Create an abstract generic base and then implement the concrete type on the derived ones:

public abstract class ClonableBase<T>
{
    public T Clone()
    {
        return (T)this.MemberwiseClone();
    }
}

public class RealClass : ClonableBase<RealClass> { }