C# return a List of a variable child class?

Question

Newbie at C# here -

I have a JSON data source that I can query. Depending on the query I issue, that JSON interface can return more than one type of object. eg it could return a list of Customers , or a list of Vendors , or a list of Items , or etc. etc. etc.

All of these objects can inherit from one base class.

Is there a way to have a single C# method able to return a list of variable type?

What about if I'm returning just a single Customer, or a single Vendor. Is there a way to make a single ->get(type, id) method return any of those object types depending on the type I pass in?

Answer 1

As AD.Net already said, you can make a generic method.

Something like

public T GetData<T>(String query)
{
    T data = //query stuff here
    return data;
}

Now, if you want to query with a query that returns a list of Customer :

var list = GetList<List<Customer>>("customerquery");

To query for a single Vendor:

var v = GetList<Vendor>("vendor query");

Etc etc..

Answer 2

Sounds like you are looking for generics .

public T Get<T>(object id)
{
    var type = typeof(T);

    // construct your query based on the type
    // var queryResult = ...
    return JsonLibrary.Parse<T>(queryResult);
}
var customer = Get<Customer>("ben");
var vendors = Get<List<Vendor>>("ben&jerrys");