When you have generic methods within a generic class, if the name of a type parameter in the generic method matches the name of a type parameter for the class, the parameter in the method takes precedence.
In the example below, both the Dog class and the BuryThing method declare a type parameter named T. Within the body of the BuryThing method, the method’s type parameter is used, rather than the class-level type parameter of the same name.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | public class Dog<T>{ // This method's type parameter hides the class-level type parameter public void BuryThing<T>(T thing) { Console.WriteLine("T's type is {0}", typeof(T).ToString()); } |
1 2 | Dog<Cow> d = new Dog<Cow>("Buster", 5);d.BuryThing(new Bone("Rawhide")); |
To avoid this confusion, you should give your type parameters meaningful names, e.g. TDogThing and TThingToBury.