Static virtual in C#

Argh, this is annoying. I need a Handler type with a virtual string GetProduct() method so that derived types "know" what product they are for. However, I don't want to have to create an instance of the actual class every time I need to ask for its product... I want it to be a virtual method. Too bad - C# doesn't allow virtual static methods.

What I ended up with was this: each class derived from Handler has a read-only static string property Product, each of them returning the product that class can handle. In the method where I need that product (when populating a drop-down for example) I use reflection to get the value of the property:

1. if (handlerType.BaseType != typeof (Handler))  
2.   return;  
3.   
4. var product = (string) handlerType.GetProperty("Product").GetValue(null, null);  

I'm not really happy with this - I miss Delphi's "class" type which allowed a much more elegant solution. I'll edit this if I find something I like better.

Edit: Heh, I found a solution I like better: attributes. I define the following class:

1. [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class)]  
2. internal class ProductInfo: Attribute  
3. {  
4.   public string Product { get; private set; }  
5.   
6.   public ProductInfo(string product)  
7.   {  
8.     Product = product;  
9.   }  
10. }  

Now I can decorate the handlers with a

[ProductInfo("xxx")]

attribute and extract the product name with

1. var attributes = handlerType.GetCustomAttributes(typeof (ProductInfo), true);  
2. if (attributes.Length == 0)  
3.   return;  
4.   
5. var product = ((ProductInfo) attributes[0]).Product;  

First time I create a custom attribute. Helpful and elegant, so it won't be the last.