How to make an object belong to a namespace (VS 2008)?

Question

Hello,

I have a name space Company.Controls, which contains several controls. I also have a class called "Common" which contains enums/structures/static methods that I use throughout the controls.

Is there a way to make these "Common" peices belong to the Company.Controls namespace this way I don't have to keep typing "Common.Structure"? Essentially having he "Common" both a namespace and a class.

Just seems messy and confusing when reading the code.

example (all the other controls are in the Blah.Controls.Common namespace)

namespace Blah.Controls
{
    public enum ControlTouchState
    {
        Down = 0x00,
        Up = 0x01,
    }

    public Common()
    {
      //Stuff here
    }

}

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can't get exactly what you want; in C# all methods have to be in a class.

Depending on what is in your Common class, you might be able to find something a slightly more satisfying by using extension methods:

namespace Blah.Controls
{
    public class CommonControl { }

    public static class Common
    {
        public static void Foo(this CommonControl cc) { }
    }

    public class Control1 : CommonControl
    {
        public void Bar()
        {
            this.Foo();
        }
    }
}

Another thing you might consider is using partial classes which would let you write simple wrappers elsewhere:

namespace Blop.Controls
{
    public static class Common
    {
        public static void Foo() { }
    }

    public partial class Control1
    {
        public void Bar()
        {
            Foo();
        }
    }

    public partial class Control1
    {
        public void Foo()
        {
            Common.Foo();
        }
    }
} 

Obviously, introducing some inheritence could eliminate some of the duplication; I'm assuming you don't want to do that.

Answer 2

Is there some reason that the nested types in Common MUST be nested? Why not separate them out into their own namespace?

namespace Common
{
    public struct Structure 
    {
        // ... 
    }

    public enum Enumeration
    {
        // ...
    }

    public class Common
    {
        // ...
    }
}

You could then use the Common namespace as such:

namespace Blah.Controls
{
    using Common;

    class Control
    {
        Struct myStruct;
        Enumeration myEnum;
        Common myCommon; // references the class, not the namespace
    }
}