What's the correct way to implement a generic method to handle collections of different integral types?

Question

I'm writing a sort of special of System.IO.BinaryWriter. This writer should be able to handle integral types, including Enum, and also collection of these types.

abstract class MyBinaryWriter
{
    // ...

    #region Methods: Basic Types: Writing
    public abstract void Write(byte value);
    public abstract void Write(ushort value);
    public abstract void Write(uint value);
    public abstract void Write(ulong value);
    public abstract void Write(string value); 
    #endregion

    #region Methods: Complex Types: Writing
    public virtual void Write<T>(ICollection<T> collection)
    {
        // first write the 32-bit-unsigned-length prefix
        if (collection == null || collection.Count == 0)
        {
            Write((uint)0);
        }
        else
        {
            Write((uint)collection.Count);

            // then write the elements, if any
            foreach (var item in collection)
                ; // What here? Obviously Write(item) doesn't work...
        }
    }

    // ...
}

What is the best approach to handle this problem? There is better solution using generics than writing an overload for each integral type and each enum type I wish to handle? A possible solution follows, but I don't like so much and has potential performance problems.

    #region Methods: Complex Types: Writing
    public virtual void Write<T>(ICollection<T> collection) where T : IConvertible
    {
        // first write the 32-bit-unsigned-length prefix
        if (collection == null || collection.Count == 0)
        {
            Write((uint)0);
        }
        else
        {
            Write((uint)collection.Count);

            // get the method for writing an element
            Action<T> write = null;
            var type = typeof(T);
            if (type.IsEnum)
                type = Enum.GetUnderlyingType(type);

            switch (Type.GetTypeCode(type))
            {
                case TypeCode.Byte:
                case TypeCode.SByte:
                    write = (x => Write((byte)(IConvertible)x.ToByte(null)));
                    break;

                case TypeCode.Int16:
                case TypeCode.UInt16:
                    write = (x => Write((ushort)(IConvertible)x.ToUInt16(null)));
                    break;

                case TypeCode.Int32:
                case TypeCode.UInt32:
                    write = (x => Write((uint)(IConvertible)x.ToUInt32(null)));
                    break;

                case TypeCode.Int64:
                case TypeCode.UInt64:
                    write = (x => Write((ulong)(IConvertible)x.ToUInt64(null)));
                    break;

                default:
                    Debug.Fail("Only supported for integral types.");
                    break;
            }

            // then write the elements, if any
            foreach (var item in collection)
                write(item);
        }
    }

Answer 1

One way to do this would be with compiled expressions:

// helper classes which compiles a fast, type-safe delegate for writing various types
static class MyBinaryWriterHelper<T> {
    public static readonly Action<MyBinaryWriter, T> WriteAction;

    // this initialization is a bit expensive, but it will occur only once
    // for each writable type T and will occur lazily
    static {
        // find the existing Write(T) on the MyBinaryWriter type
        var writeMethod = typeof(MyBinaryWriter).GetMethods()
            .FirstOrDefault(m => m.Name == "Write" 
                && m.GetArguments().Length == 1
                && m.GetArguments()[0](p => p.ParameterType == typeof(T)
        );

        // if there is no such method, fail
        if (writeMethod == null) { throw ... }

        // build up an expression (writer, t) => writer.Write(t)
        var writerParam = Expression.Parameter(typeof(MyBinaryWriter));
        var tParam = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T));
        var call = Expression.Call(writerParam, writeMethod, tParam);
        var lambda = Expression.Lambda<Action<MyBinaryWriter, T>>(call, new[] { writerParam, tParam });

        // compile the expression to a delegate, caching the result statically in the
        // readonly WriteAction field
        WriteAction = lambda.Compile();
    }
}

// then in your writer class
public void Write<T>(IEnumerable<T> collection) {
    // other collection writing logic (e. g. writing the count) ...

    // to write out the items, just use the static action field
    foreach (var t in collection) {
        MyBinaryWriterHelper<T>.WriteAction(this, t);
    }
}

While there's no way to use generics to enforce that the type is "numeric", you can use IConvertible (as in your example code) as a loose constraint for this purpose to add extra compile-time safety.

Answer 2

Best thing I can think is to use dynamic:

public void Write<T>(ICollection<T> collection) {
    dynamic self = this;
    foreach (var value in collection) {
        self.Write(value);
    }
}

The performance of dynamic invocation has been discussed by Eric. In short, its performance is somewhat equal to using compiled expression tree.