Re: [Quickfix-developers] Non-const constants

[Jonathan A. <ja...@aa...>]

Well that's certainly a stupid limitation on C#'s part. And since "just
use VB" probably isn't the answer you are looking for, I'm behind you on
this one.

 

Looking through the object model, it looks like there are a lot of other
places where making that change would also be beneficial. For example,
it looks like all the field enumerations use that instead of constants.

 

Jonathan Louis Allen
Software Developer
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________________________________

From: qui...@li...
[mailto:qui...@li...] On Behalf Of
Brian Erst
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:32 AM
To: qui...@li...
Subject: [Quickfix-developers] Non-const constants

 

Is there are a reason that constant strings in the .Net library are not
"const"?

For instance, the MsgType class defines a whole series of static string
"constants" for all the known FIX message types (beginning with
ALLOCATION and ending with XML_MESSAGE). Unfortunately, they are defined
as "public static string" rather than "public const string".

This may seem like a trivial difference, but it means that these values
can't be used as part of a switch() statement.

switch (msgType.getValue())
{
    case MsgType.HEARTBEAT: // Doesn't work - not a constant value
}

So, I end up making parallel classes that simply redefine the values in
a "const" manner.

public class MsgTypeConstants
{
    public const string HEARTBEAT = "0";
    ...
}

switch (msgType.getValue())
{
    case MsgTypeConstants.HEARTBEAT: // This works
}

Is there a reason for "static" instead of "const"?

- Brian Erst
Thynk Software, Inc.

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