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Using Variance in Interfaces for Generic Collections (Visual Basic)

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A covariant interface allows its methods to return more derived types than those specified in the interface. A contravariant interface allows its methods to accept parameters of less derived types than those specified in the interface.

In .NET Framework 4, several existing interfaces became covariant and contravariant. These include IEnumerable<T> and IComparable<T>. This enables you to reuse methods that operate with generic collections of base types for collections of derived types.

For a list of variant interfaces in the .NET Framework, see Variance in Generic Interfaces (Visual Basic).

Converting Generic Collections

The following example illustrates the benefits of covariance support in the IEnumerable<T> interface. The PrintFullName method accepts a collection of the IEnumerable(Of Person) type as a parameter. However, you can reuse it for a collection of the IEnumerable(Of Person) type because Employee inherits Person.

' Simple hierarchy of classes.
Public Class Person
    Public Property FirstName As String
    Public Property LastName As String
End Class

Public Class Employee
    Inherits Person
End Class

' The method has a parameter of the IEnumerable(Of Person) type.
Public Sub PrintFullName(ByVal persons As IEnumerable(Of Person))
    For Each person As Person In persons
        Console.WriteLine(
            "Name: " & person.FirstName & " " & person.LastName)
    Next
End Sub

Sub Main()
    Dim employees As IEnumerable(Of Employee) = New List(Of Employee)

    ' You can pass IEnumerable(Of Employee),
    ' although the method expects IEnumerable(Of Person).

    PrintFullName(employees)

End Sub

Comparing Generic Collections

The following example illustrates the benefits of contravariance support in the IComparer<T> interface. The PersonComparer class implements the IComparer(Of Person) interface. However, you can reuse this class to compare a sequence of objects of the Employee type because Employee inherits Person.

' Simple hierarchy of classes.
Public Class Person
    Public Property FirstName As String
    Public Property LastName As String
End Class

Public Class Employee
    Inherits Person
End Class
' The custom comparer for the Person type
' with standard implementations of Equals()
' and GetHashCode() methods.
Class PersonComparer
    Implements IEqualityComparer(Of Person)

    Public Function Equals1(
        ByVal x As Person,
        ByVal y As Person) As Boolean _
        Implements IEqualityComparer(Of Person).Equals

        If x Is y Then Return True
        If x Is Nothing OrElse y Is Nothing Then Return False
        Return (x.FirstName = y.FirstName) AndAlso
            (x.LastName = y.LastName)
    End Function
    Public Function GetHashCode1(
        ByVal person As Person) As Integer _
        Implements IEqualityComparer(Of Person).GetHashCode

        If person Is Nothing Then Return 0
        Dim hashFirstName =
            If(person.FirstName Is Nothing,
            0, person.FirstName.GetHashCode())
        Dim hashLastName = person.LastName.GetHashCode()
        Return hashFirstName Xor hashLastName
    End Function
End Class

Sub Main()
    Dim employees = New List(Of Employee) From {
        New Employee With {.FirstName = "Michael", .LastName = "Alexander"},
        New Employee With {.FirstName = "Jeff", .LastName = "Price"}
    }

    ' You can pass PersonComparer,
    ' which implements IEqualityComparer(Of Person),
    ' although the method expects IEqualityComparer(Of Employee)

    Dim noduplicates As IEnumerable(Of Employee) = employees.Distinct(New PersonComparer())

    For Each employee In noduplicates
        Console.WriteLine(employee.FirstName & " " & employee.LastName)
    Next
End Sub

See also