oop - How can I prevent a base constructor from being called by an inheritor in C#?

Question

I've got a (poorly written) base class that I want to wrap in a proxy object. The base class resembles the following:

public class BaseClass : SomeOtherBase 
{
   public BaseClass() {}

   public BaseClass(int someValue) {}

   //...more code, not important here
}

and, my proxy resembles:

public BaseClassProxy : BaseClass
{
  public BaseClassProxy(bool fakeOut){}
}

Without the "fakeOut" constructor, the base constructor is expected to be called. However, with it, I expected it to not be called. Either way, I either need a way to not call any base class constructors, or some other way to effectively proxy this (evil) class.

Answer 1

There is a way to create an object without calling any instance constructors.

Before you proceed, be very sure you want to do it this way. 99% of the time this is the wrong solution.

This is how you do it:

FormatterServices.GetUninitializedObject(typeof(MyClass));

Call it in place of the object's constructor. It will create and return you an instance without calling any constructors or field initializers.

When you deserialize an object in WCF, it uses this method to create the object. When this happens, constructors and even field initializers are not run.