In C#, can a class inherit from another class and an interface?

Question

I want to know if a class can inherit from a class and an interface. The example code below doesn't work but I think it conveys what I want to do. The reason that I want to do this is because at my company we make USB, serial, Ethernet, etc device. I am trying to develop a generic component/interface that I can use to write programs for all our devices that will help keep the common things (like connecting, disconnecting, getting firmware) the same for all of our applications.

To add to this question: If GenericDevice is in different project, can I put the IOurDevices interface in that project then then make the USBDevice class implement the interface if I add a reference to the first project? Because would like to just reference one project and then implement different interfaces depending on what the device is.

class GenericDevice
{
   private string _connectionState;
   public connectionState
   {
      get{return _connectionState; }
      set{ _connectionState = value;}
   }
}

interface IOurDevices
{
   void connectToDevice();
   void DisconnectDevice();
   void GetFirmwareVersion();
}

class USBDevice : IOurDevices : GenericDevice
{
   //here I would define the methods in the interface
   //like this...
   void connectToDevice()
   {
       connectionState = "connected";
   }
}

//so that in my main program I can do this...

class myProgram
{
   main()
   {
      USBDevice myUSB = new USBDevice();
      myUSB.ConnectToDevice;
   }
}

Answer 1

Yes. Try:

class USBDevice : GenericDevice, IOurDevice

Note: The base class should come before the list of interface names.

Of course, you'll still need to implement all the members that the interfaces define. However, if the base class contains a member that matches an interface member, the base class member can work as the implementation of the interface member and you are not required to manually implement it again.

Answer 2

No, not exactly. But it can inherit from a class and implement one or more interfaces.

Clear terminology is important when discussing concepts like this. One of the things that you'll see mark out Jon Skeet's writing, for example, both here and in print, is that he is always precise in the way he decribes things.

Answer 3

Unrelated to the question (Mehrdad's answer should get you going), and I hope this isn't taken as nitpicky: classes don't inherit interfaces, they implement them.

.NET does not support multiple-inheritance, so keeping the terms straight can help in communication. A class can inherit from one superclass and can implement as many interfaces as it wishes.

---

In response to Eric's comment... I had a discussion with another developer about whether or not interfaces "inherit", "implement", "require", or "bring along" interfaces with a declaration like:

public interface ITwo : IOne

The technical answer is that ITwo does inherit IOne for a few reasons:

• Interfaces never have an implementation, so arguing that ITwo implements IOne is flat wrong
• ITwo inherits IOne methods, if MethodOne() exists on IOne then it is also accesible from ITwo. i.e: ((ITwo)someObject).MethodOne()) is valid, even though ITwo does not explicitly contain a definition for MethodOne()
• ...because the runtime says so! typeof(IOne).IsAssignableFrom(typeof(ITwo)) returns true

We finally agreed that interfaces support true/full inheritance. The missing inheritance features (such as overrides, abstract/virtual accessors, etc) are missing from interfaces, not from interface inheritance. It still doesn't make the concept simple or clear, but it helps understand what's really going on under the hood in Eric's world :-)

Answer 4

I found the answer to the second part of my questions. Yes, a class can implement an interface that is in a different class as long that the interface is declared as public.