partial class

[Benji Smith]

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> Alexander Pánek escribió:
>> You can’t just “monkey-patch” the original class, though. With partial 
>> classes you could just inject some additional code to the original class.
> 
> The thing is, in C# all pieces of a partial class must be defined in the 
> same assembly, and it also must be defined as "partial class". So if you 
> can "monkey-patch" a partial class, you could just as easily go to the 
> class' source code and inject that additional code.

Although C# partial classes must be defined in the same assembly, you 
can also use "extension methods" for adding new methods to an 
already-defined class, no matter what assembly it comes from. Even the 
core classes, like String, can be modified using extension methods.

The D trick where "static method(a, b)" is the same as "a.method(b)" is 
almost identical to the C# extension methods. The only real difference 
is that the trick can only be used on functions defined as extension 
methods, not for any arbitrary function. I like that.

--benji