generic request class to send web request

Question

i am trying to add generize list as class member in my UserRequest class as follows

 public class UserRequest<T> where T : RealmObject
    {
        public String userName { get; set; }
        public String password { get; set; } 
        public String userId { get; set; }
        public int page { get; set; }
        public IList<T> requestList { get; set; }            

    }

now , whenever i want to send multiple Contact or Customer data i can simply use following request

in case of contact

UserRequest<Contact> userRequest = new UserRequest<Contact>();
userRequest.userId = "112";
userRequest.requestList = contactList;

this will result into following request data

{

  "userId": "112",  
  "requsetList": [
    {

      "firstName": "john",
      "lastName": "j",
      "contactNumber": "(992) 414-9999",

    }
  ]
}

in case of customer i will use userRequest.requestList = customerList , this approach helps me in avoid cerating saperate entiries for customer and contact in UserRequest class

But the issue is when i just want to create simple UserRequest even then i have to pass someting in T.

for example if i want to use it for login request , following code won't work , so is there any way to use UserRequest for generic request and non generic request

UserRequest userRequet = new UserRequest();
userRequest.userName ="abc";
userRequest.password="1234";

Answer 1

UserRequest and UserRequest<T> are two different types - you cannot create a UserRequest if UserRequest<T> is the only class you have written.

As you have found, UserRequest<T> requires a generic type to be set. You could just create a UserRequest<object> for logins, but this is a bit of a code smell and breaks the RealmObject constraint. better is to make the generic type a sub-class of the non-generic one:

public class UserRequest
{
    public String userName { get; set; }
    public String password { get; set; }
    public String userId { get; set; }
}

public class UserRequest<T> : UserRequest
    where T : RealmObject
{
    public int page { get; set; }
    public IList<T> requestList { get; set; }
}