c# - "Member cannot be accessed with an instance reference qualify it with a type name instead" and I DO use type name

Question

I have an example code like this:

public class SimpleLogger
{
    private static SimpleLogger logger;
    private string path = null;

    protected SimpleLogger(string path)
    {
        this.path = path;
    }

    public static SimpleLogger Instance(string path)
    {
        if (logger == null)
        {
            logger = new SimpleLogger(path);
        }
        return logger;
    }

    public static void Info(string info)
    {
        string path = $"{logger.path}{DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString()}_Info.txt";
        using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(path))
        {
            writer.WriteLine($"{DateTime.Now} - {info}");
        }
    }
}

and when I call:

SimpleLogger.Instance("path").Info("info");

There's an error:
member cannot be accessed with an instance reference qualify it with a type name instead static method

But I DO use type name, don't I?

But when I call it like this:

SimpleLogger.Instance("path");
SimpleLogger.Info("info");  

it actually does work fine.

To make it work inline I have to make Info method non-static and then inline call work also fine. Why is that? I don't understand the mechanism here. Can someone explain? Is it beacuse Instance method returns SimpleLogger object and then info requires to be non-static to be able to work on an instance rather than a type?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65840929/what-is-the-meaning-of-cs0176-error-in-c

Answer 1

In C#, instance methods can only be called on an instance, whereas static methods can only be called on a class/struct itself.

Why can't you chain Info onto SimpleLogger.Instance()?

Because SimpleLogger.Instance(...) returns an instance of SimpleLogger, and you are trying to call a static method on the returned value. The returned value is an instance of SimpleLogger, so you can't call a static method on it.

By making Info non-static, you enable it to be called on an instance. Therefore, you can call it on the return value of Instance().

One reason for your confusion might be that you don't see the instance of SimpleLogger in your chain of methods, so to better illustrate the idea of chaining methods, this:

SimpleLogger.Instance("path").Info("info");

is equivalent to:

SimpleLogger logger = impleLogger.Instance("path");
logger.Info("info");

See the instance of SimpleLogger now?