getting overflow exception while intiliazing in c# constructor

Question

i have a class like this

public class Menu
 {
 public int MenuID { get; set; }
 public string MenuName { get; set; }
 public string LinkAddress { get; set; }
 public Menu[] menu;
}

while i am trying to intilize in the constructor as follows i get an overflow exception error

 public Menu() {
 Menu[] menu = {
 new Menu { MenuID = 1, MenuName = "Home", LinkAddress = "home/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 2, MenuName = "Gallery", LinkAddress = "Gallery/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 3, MenuName = "Academics", LinkAddress = "Academics/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 4, MenuName = "Blog", LinkAddress = "Blog/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 5, MenuName = "Login", LinkAddress = "Login/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 6, MenuName = "UserLogin", LinkAddress = "UserLogin/index" } 
 , new Menu { MenuID = 7, MenuName = "ForgotPassword", LinkAddress = "ForgotPassword/index" } 
 };
 }

i also tried to intialize myvariable

public Menu[] menu;

in the constructor but i was not able to intialize it. can anyone tell me what exactly am i doing wrong. I thought constructor is used to intialize variables but i am not able to intiliaze it. thank you for your help.

• Hans Passant: StackOverflowException != OverflowException. Your default constructor creates Menu items with the default constructor. Which creates Menu items with the default constructor. Which creates Menu items with the default constructor. Which creates Menu items with the default constructor. Which creates Menu items with the default constructor. Which creates Menu items with the default constructor.... Kaboom! Consider that you need two classes, a Menu and a MenuItem class.

Answer 1

you are made a circular reference when declaring an array of a class inside the class:

 public Menu[] menu;//<-- declaring inside Menu class produces circular refernce

thus an overflow exception

Use a method instead, e.g:

public void InitMenu()
 {
 this.menu = new Menu[]{
 new Menu { MenuID = 1, MenuName = "Home", LinkAddress = "home/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 2, MenuName = "Gallery", LinkAddress = "Gallery/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 3, MenuName = "Academics", LinkAddress = "Academics/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 4, MenuName = "Blog", LinkAddress = "Blog/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 5, MenuName = "Login", LinkAddress = "Login/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 6, MenuName = "UserLogin", LinkAddress = "UserLogin/index" }
 , new Menu { MenuID = 7, MenuName = "ForgotPassword", LinkAddress = "ForgotPassword/index" }
 };
 }

and consume as:

Menu m = new Menu();
 m.InitMenu();
 m.menu=..;//<--acces your array

• Lijin Durairaj: well i want to intilize public Menu[] menu variable, how can i do that
• apomene: declare it in the class that consumes it
• Lijin Durairaj: is there no way where i an intilize the variable while i create an object of Menu class...thanks