Re: casting vs. using the "Convert" methods?

From: Alexander Mueller (postmaster_at_127.0.0.1)
Date: 03/18/05 

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 03:15:01 +0100

Bruce Wood wrote:
> Not true. The truth is a bit more complex than that. .NET provides
> three methods of getting from point A to point B, as it were.

When I was talking of casting I was of course only talking about casting
in terms of objects and not of primitive types.

>
> Note that the underlying representation _did_ change in this
> conversion: a double is represented completely differently from an int.

Well, because it was a conversion and not a cast.

>
> Note that there is nothing that absolutely requires a method call here.
> The designers could quite easily have created an explicit
> cast operator that converted a string to an int. The requirement that
> you call a method is a stylistic choice rather than a fundamental
> requirement of the language.

As proven by PHP.

> Implicit and explicit casts are method calls too (that's how you make
> your own).

I have to say I am not extremely well familiar with C# internals but I
doubt it calls a method for a simple cast. Casting an instance from
object to string will probably only tell the compiler not to report the
typical incompatible types message - along with additional checks for
possible unsupported casting exceptions.

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