c# practices for correct object oriented techniques

Question

I have some c# code that has been working well for a while now.. and I have to say, whilst I understand the basics of OO principles, there is obviously more than one way to skin a cat (although I hate that phrase!).

So, I have a base abstract class that is acting as a basic data service class as follows (much simplified just for ease of reading):

public abstract class dataservice
{
    public enum OutputType : int { XmlTOJson = 0, Xml = 1, Json=2 }

    protected object SomeDBcall(string StoredProcedure)
    {
        // Just assume we are using SQLclient/DB access..
        object SomeReturnObjValue = db.ExecuteScalar(cmd);
        return SomeReturnObjValue;
    {
}

.. so basically I might have a few basic DB retrieve/update/delete calls in the abstract class.. mainly as there are the basis of any DB operation I have in my app.

So now we have a class that implements the base class, say in my case a customer class:

public class Customer : dataservice
{
    Public String CustomerDoSomething(string SomeDataEtc)
    {
        // Ok, so again for simplicity sake, we are going to use the base class to 
        // call a DB retrieve 
        object ReturningObj = SomeDBcall("my stored procedure");
        return ReturningObj.ToString();
    }
}

So I guess my question is this: Is the above method "ok" to use? considering a virtual method could be over-ridden if required, however in this case I only want the base class to use those methods which are protected as the means to call the DB operations.

Any clarity/guidance very appreciated!

Answer 1

Sure, it's "ok", though I see no reason for the base class to be abstract. abstract classes are great for implementing some common logic and leaving the rest up to derived classes to implement. However, you have no abstract/virtual methods, so I don't see the point here.