C# Language Specification

Overloading in generic classes

While signatures as declared must be unique, it is possible that substitution of type arguments results in identical signatures. In such cases, the tie-breaking rules of overload resolution above will pick the most specific member.

The following examples show overloads that are valid and invalid according to this rule:

interface I1 {...}

interface I2 {...}

class G1
{
int F1(U u); // Overload resulotion for G.F1
int F1(int i); // will pick non-generic

void F2(I1 a); // Valid overload

void F2(I2 a);
}

class G2

{
void F3(U u, V v); // Valid, but overload resolution for
void F3(V v, U u); // G2.F3 will fail

void F4(U u, I1 v); // Valid, but overload resolution for

void F4(I1 v, U u); // G2,int>.F4 will fail

void F5(U u1, I1 v2); // Valid overload

void F5(V v1, U u2);

void F6(ref U u); // valid overload

void F6(out V v);
}

4.