Introduction
This article describes several casting and type related operations in VB.NET and C#.
Casting in VB.NET
-
By default in VB, casting is automatically done for you when you assign objects to variables. The objects are then automatically casted to the variables' type.
This behaviour can be influenced by an option line on top of your code file:
Option Strict On
Option Strict Off
When on, casting is strict and not automatic.
-
Explicit casting can be done with the cast operator CType()
or DirectCast()
:
textbox = CType(obj, TextBox)
textbox = DirectCast(obj, TextBox)
The difference between the two keywords is that CType
succeeds as long as there is a valid conversion defined between the expression and the type, whereas DirectCast
requires the run-time type of an object variable to be the same as the specified type. If the specified type and the run-time type of the expression are the same, however, the run-time performance of DirectCast
is better than that of CType
. DirectCast
throws an InvalidCastException
error if the argument types do not match.
-
Testing if an object is of a particular type, can be done with the TypeOf...Is
operator:
If TypeOf obj Is TextBox Then...
-
Obtaining a System.Type
object for a given type can be done with the GetType
operator:
Dim t As System.Type
t = GetType(String)
MessageBox.Show(t.FullName)
-
Obtaining a System.Type
object for a given object can be done with the GetType
method:
Dim t as System.Type
t = obj.GetType()
MessageBox.Show(t.FullName)
Casting in C#
-
C# is a strictly typed language. Whenever types don't match, casting is necessary.
Regular casting in C# follows the C(++) and Java syntax:
string s = (string)obj;
The casting operator applies to the complete chain on the right of it, so in the following example, not a, but a.b is casted to a Form
:
Form f = (Form)a.b;
To cast parts of the chain, use brackets. In the following example, obj
is casted to a Form
:
string s = ((Form)obj).Text;
-
C# knows an additional casting operator: as
.
The as
operator is like a cast except that it yields null on conversion failure instead of raising an exception. In the following situation, btn
gets the value null
:
Object obj = new TextBox();
Button btn = obj as Button;
-
Testing if an object is of a particular type, can be done with the is
operator:
if (obj is TextBox) {...}
-
Obtaining a System.Type
object for a given type can be done with the typeof
operator:
System.Type t;
t = typeof(String);
MessageBox.Show(t.FullName);
-
Obtaining a System.Type
object for a given object can be done with the GetType
method:
System.Type t;
t = obj.GetType();
MessageBox.Show(t.FullName);