C#: Overriding return types

What about a generic base class?

public class Poo { }
public class RadioactivePoo : Poo { }

public class BaseAnimal<PooType> 
    where PooType : Poo, new() {
    PooType Excrement {
        get { return new PooType(); }
    }
}

public class Dog : BaseAnimal<Poo> { }
public class Cat : BaseAnimal<RadioactivePoo> { }

EDIT: A new solution, using extension methods and a marker interface...

public class Poo { }
public class RadioactivePoo : Poo { }

// just a marker interface, to get the poo type
public interface IPooProvider<PooType> { }

// Extension method to get the correct type of excrement
public static class IPooProviderExtension {
    public static PooType StronglyTypedExcrement<PooType>(
        this IPooProvider<PooType> iPooProvider) 
        where PooType : Poo {
        BaseAnimal animal = iPooProvider as BaseAnimal;
        if (null == animal) {
            throw new InvalidArgumentException("iPooProvider must be a BaseAnimal.");
        }
        return (PooType)animal.Excrement;
    }
}

public class BaseAnimal {
    public virtual Poo Excrement {
        get { return new Poo(); }
    }
}

public class Dog : BaseAnimal, IPooProvider<Poo> { }

public class Cat : BaseAnimal, IPooProvider<RadioactivePoo> {
    public override Poo Excrement {
        get { return new RadioactivePoo(); }
    }
}

class Program { 
    static void Main(string[] args) {
        Dog dog = new Dog();
        Poo dogPoo = dog.Excrement;

        Cat cat = new Cat();
        RadioactivePoo catPoo = cat.StronglyTypedExcrement();
    }
}

This way Dog and Cat both inherit from Animal (as remarked in the comments, my first solution did not preserve the inheritance).
It's necessary to mark explicitly the classes with the marker interface, which is painful, but maybe this could give you some ideas...

SECOND EDIT @Svish: I modified the code to show explitly that the extension method is not enforcing in any way the fact that iPooProvider inherits from BaseAnimal. What do you mean by "even more strongly-typed"?

This is called return type covariance and is not supported in C# or .NET in general, despite some people's wishes.

What I would do is keep the same signature but add an additional ENSURE clause to the derived class in which I ensure that this one returns a RadioActivePoo. So, in short, I'd do via design by contract what I can't do via syntax.

Others prefer to fake it instead. It's ok, I guess, but I tend to economize "infrastructure" lines of code. If the semantics of the code are clear enough, I'm happy, and design by contract lets me achieve that, although it is not a compile time mechanism.

The same for generics, which other answers suggest. I would use them for a better reason than just returning radioactive poo - but that's just me.

There is also this option (explicit interface-implementation)

public class Cat:Animal
{
  Poo Animal.Excrement { get { return Excrement; } }
  public RadioactivePoo Excrement { get { return new RadioactivePoo(); } }
}

You lose the ability to use the base-class to implement Cat, but on the plus-side, you keep the polymorphism between Cat and Dog.

But I doubt the added complexity is worth it.

C#9 gives us covariant override return types. Basically: what you want just works.

Try this:

namespace ClassLibrary1
{
    public interface Animal
    {   
        Poo Excrement { get; }
    }

    public class Poo
    {
    }

    public class RadioactivePoo
    {
    }

    public class AnimalBase<T>
    {   
        public virtual T Excrement
        { 
            get { return default(T); } 
        }
    }


    public class Dog : AnimalBase<Poo>
    {  
        // No override, just return normal poo like normal animal
    }

    public class Cat : AnimalBase<RadioactivePoo>
    {  
        public override RadioactivePoo Excrement 
        {
            get { return new RadioactivePoo(); } 
        }
    }
}

Correct me if im wrong but isnt the whole point of pollymorphism to be able to return RadioActivePoo if it inherits from Poo, the contract would be the same as the abstract class but just return RadioActivePoo()

I think I've found a way that doesn't depend on generics or extension methods, but rather method hiding. It can break polymorphism, however, so be especially careful if you further inherit from Cat.

I hope this post could still help somebody, despite being 8 months late.

public interface Animal
{
    Poo Excrement { get; }
}

public class Poo
{
}

public class RadioActivePoo : Poo
{
}

public class AnimalBase : Animal
{
    public virtual Poo Excrement { get { return new Poo(); } }
}

public class Dog : AnimalBase
{
    // No override, just return normal poo like normal animal
}

public class CatBase : AnimalBase
{
    public override Poo Excrement { get { return new RadioActivePoo(); } }
}

public class Cat : CatBase
{
    public new RadioActivePoo Excrement { get { return (RadioActivePoo) base.Excrement; } }
}

It might help if RadioactivePoo is derived from poo and then use generics.

The following combines some of the best aspects of several other answers as well as a technique to allow the key aspect of Cat having an Excrement property of the required RadioactivePoo type, but being able to return that as merely Poo if we only know we've got an AnimalBase rather than specifically a Cat.

Callers aren't required to use generics, even though they are present in the implementations, nor to call a differently-named function to get special Poo.

The intermediate class AnimalWithSpecialisations serves only to seal the Excrement property, connecting it via a non-public SpecialPoo property to the derived class AnimalWithSpecialPoo<TPoo> which has an Excrement property of a derived return type.

If Cat is the only animal whose Poo is special in any way, or we don't want the type of Excrement to be the main defining feature of a Cat, the intermediate generic class could be skipped in the hierarchy, so that Cat derives directly from AnimalWithSpecialisations, but if there are several different animals whose primary characteristic is that their Poo is special in some way, separating out the "boilerplate" into intermediate classes helps to keep the Cat class itself fairly clean, albeit at the cost of a couple of extra virtual function calls.

The example code shows that most of the expected operations work "as expected".

public interface IExcretePoo<out TPoo>
  where TPoo : Poo
{
  TPoo Excrement { get; }
}

public class Poo
{ }

public class RadioactivePoo : Poo
{ }

public class AnimalBase : IExcretePoo<Poo>
{
  public virtual Poo Excrement { get { return new Poo(); } }
}

public class Dog : AnimalBase
{
  // No override, just return normal poo like normal animal
}

public abstract class AnimalWithSpecialisations : AnimalBase
{
  // this class connects AnimalBase to AnimalWithSpecialPoo<TPoo>
  public sealed override Poo Excrement { get { return SpecialPoo; } }

  // if not overridden, our "special" poo turns out just to be normal animal poo...
  protected virtual Poo SpecialPoo { get { return base.Excrement; } }
}

public abstract class AnimalWithSpecialPoo<TPoo> : AnimalWithSpecialisations, IExcretePoo<TPoo>
  where TPoo : Poo
{
  sealed protected override Poo SpecialPoo { get { return Excrement; } }
  public new abstract TPoo Excrement { get; }
}

public class Cat : AnimalWithSpecialPoo<RadioactivePoo>
{
  public override RadioactivePoo Excrement { get { return new RadioactivePoo(); } }
}

class Program
{
  static void Main(string[] args)
  {
    Dog dog = new Dog();
    Poo dogPoo = dog.Excrement;

    Cat cat = new Cat();
    RadioactivePoo catPoo = cat.Excrement;

    AnimalBase animal = cat;

    Poo animalPoo = catPoo;
    animalPoo = animal.Excrement;

    AnimalWithSpecialPoo<RadioactivePoo> radioactivePooingAnimal = cat;
    RadioactivePoo radioactivePoo = radioactivePooingAnimal.Excrement;

    IExcretePoo<Poo> pooExcreter = cat; // through this interface we don't know the Poo was radioactive.
    IExcretePoo<RadioactivePoo> radioactivePooExcreter = cat; // through this interface we do.

    // we can replace these with the dog equivalents:
    animal = dog;
    animalPoo = dogPoo;
    pooExcreter = dog;

    // but we can't do:
    // radioactivePooExcreter = dog;
    // radioactivePooingAnimal = dog;
    // radioactivePoo = dogPoo;
  }