Summary
An interface can be defined as a named collection of abstract members. Because an interface does not provide any implementation details, it is common to regard an interface as a behavior that may be supported by a given type. When two or more classes implement the same interface, you are able to treat each type the same way (aka interface-based polymorphism).
C# provides the interface keyword to allow you to define a new interface. As you have seen, a type can support as many interfaces as necessary using a comma-delimited list. Furthermore, it is permissible to build interfaces that derive from multiple base interfaces.
In addition to building your custom interfaces, the .NET libraries define a number of standard (i.e., framework-supplied) interfaces. As you have seen, you are free to build custom types that implement these predefined interfaces to gain a number of desirable traits such as cloning, sorting, and enumerating. Finally, you spent some time investigating the stock collection classes defined within the System.Collections namespace and examining a number of common interfaces used by the collection-centric types.
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© 2005 Andrew Troelsen
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(2005). Interfaces and Collections. In: Pro C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform. Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0060-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0060-4_7
Publisher Name: Apress
Print ISBN: 978-1-59059-419-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4302-0060-4
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