Why is Multiple Inheritance not allowed in C#?

Shivaraj Poojary

15y3.7k.NET

Hi Experts...
I know that multiple inheritance is not allowed in C#. But it can be implemented by using interfaces. Can anybody tell me precisely why it is not allowed?

Thanks in advance..

4 Replies

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Vulpes15y ago
There's a fuller explanation here by the C# team of why multiple inheritance isn't supported:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/csharpfaq/archive/2004/03/07/why-doesn-t-c-support-multiple-inheritance.aspx
Suthish Nair15y ago
He is always right here ! :)
Mahesh Chand15y ago
Vulpes is right.
Vulpes15y ago
When .NET was being designed in the late 1990's it was felt that multiple inheritance was more trouble than it was worth (the 'diamond' problem, virtual base classes etc) and so the designers decided to go with a single inheritance model instead.

The designers of Java and Delphi had already come to a similar conclusion.

However, there are nevertheless some situations where multiple inheritance is a good design and, if you look in the sidebar to the right of this thread, you'll find a couple of articles I've written about simulating it in C#.