137 words (approximately 1 min)

Overview

Generic interfaces are type-safe counterparts to non-generic interfaces for ordering and equality comparisons and for functionality shared by generic collection types.

  • Availability: .NET 7

Framework-provided Generic Interfaces

For Equality and Ordering Comparisons

  • System.IComparable<T> — methods for ordering comparisons
  • System.IEquatable<T> — methods for equality comparisons
  • IComparer<T> — define an ordering comparison for types that do not implement IComparable<T>
  • IEqualityComparer<T> — define an equality comparison for types that do not implement IEquatable<T>

For Collection Functionality

  • ICollection<T> — the basic interface for generic collection types; methods for adding, removing, copying, and enumerating elements; inherits from IEnumerable<T> and IEnumerable.
  • IList<T> — extends ICollection<T> with methods for indexed retrieval
  • IDictionary<TKey, TValue> — extends ICollection<T> with methods for keyed retrieval
  • IEnumerable<T> — provides a generic enumerator structure; inherits IEnumerator, so any consumer of the non-generic interface can also consume this generic one