I was playing around with weak references recently and wanted to tidy up my code a little – there were casts everywhere – so I knocked up a derivation using generics. I'm sure someone somewhere already did this, but I thought I'd share it anyway, so here it is.
/// <summary> /// Strongly-typed weak reference. /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="T">The type of object being referenced.</typeparam> public class WeakReference<T> : WeakReference, ISerializable where T : class { /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="WeakReference<T>"/> class, referencing /// the specified object. /// </summary> /// <param name="target">An object to track.</param> public WeakReference(T target) : base(target) { } /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="WeakReference<T>"/> class, referencing /// the specified object and using the specified resurrection tracking. /// </summary> /// <param name="target">An object to track.</param> /// <param name="trackResurrection">Indicates when to stop tracking the object. If <c>true</c>, the object is tracked /// after finalization; if <c>false</c>, the object is only tracked until finalization..</param> public WeakReference(T target, bool trackResurrection) : base(target, trackResurrection) { } /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="WeakReference<T>"/> class. /// </summary> /// <param name="info">An object that holds all the data needed to serialize or deserialize the current <see cref="T:System.WeakReference"/> object.</param> /// <param name="context">(Reserved) Describes the source and destination of the serialized stream specified by <paramref name="info"/>.</param> /// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentNullException"> /// <paramref name="info"/> is null. </exception> protected WeakReference(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) : base(info, context) { } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the object (the target) referenced by the current <see cref="T:System.WeakReference"/> object. /// </summary> /// <value></value> /// <returns>null if the object referenced by the current <see cref="T:System.WeakReference"/> object has been garbage collected; otherwise, a reference to the object referenced by the current <see cref="T:System.WeakReference"/> object.</returns> /// <exception cref="T:System.InvalidOperationException">The reference to the target object is invalid. This exception can be thrown while setting this property if the value is a null reference or if the object has been finalized during the set operation.</exception> public new T Target { get { return (T)base.Target; } set { base.Target = value; } } }
There's not much to say about this class. I've replaced the Target
property of the original WeakReference
class with a strongly-typed one based on the type parameter, T
. The other bits are just constructors to mirror those in the base class and it's job done.
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