what is an abstract base class?

It's a class which can't instantiated itself but which provides several abstract methods or properties which 'concrete' derived classes can override to provide a suitable implementation. For example:

using System;

public abstract class Animal

{

public abstract void MakeNoise();

}

public class Dog : Animal

{

public override void MakeNoise()

{

Console.WriteLine("Woof!");

}

public class Cat : Animal

{

public override void MakeNoise()

{

Console.WriteLine("Meow!");

}

class Test

{

static void Main()

{

Animal rover = new Dog();

rover.MakeNoise();

Animal tiddles = new Cat();

tiddles.MakeNoise();

Console.ReadKey();

}

1 Reply

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Vulpes14y ago
It's a class which can't instantiated itself but which provides several abstract methods or properties which 'concrete' derived classes can override to provide a suitable implementation. For example:

using System;

public abstract class Animal
{
public abstract void MakeNoise();
}

public class Dog : Animal
{
public override void MakeNoise()
{
Console.WriteLine("Woof!");
}
}

public class Cat : Animal
{
public override void MakeNoise()
{
Console.WriteLine("Meow!");
}
}

class Test
{
static void Main()
{
Animal rover = new Dog();
rover.MakeNoise();
Animal tiddles = new Cat();
tiddles.MakeNoise();
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
0