converting vb DirectCast to c#

Question

i am converting a vb project to c#;
everything is ok except this line:

information = DirectCast(jsonserializer.Deserialize(jsonString, GetType(List(Of formData))), List(Of formData))

i created a class(formData) just same as vb, and json string is the same as vb.

    public class formData
{
    private string part;
    private string key;
    private string val;
    public formData(string part, string key, string val)
    {
        this.part = part;
        this.key = key;
        this.val = val;
    }

    public string Part
    {
        get { return part; }
        set { part = value; }
    }

    public string Key
    {
        get { return key; }
        set { key = value; }
    }

    public string Value
    {
        get { return val; }
        set { val = value; }
    }
}

what should i do?
i have to use "http://json.codeplex.com/"?

Answer 1

Directcast in VB is the same as casting to type in C#.

So, I believe your code would look something like this:

var jsonserializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var information = jsonserializer.Deserialize(jsonString, typeof(List<formData>)) as List<formData>;

or

var jsonserializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var information = (List<formData>)jsonserializer.Deserialize(jsonString, typeof(List<formData>));

The difference between the two is that the former will return null if the cast fails whereas the latter will throw an exception. There is a great discussion between casting as type and as on SO here:

Difference between type cast and 'as' cast