Cast an object to IEnumerable where I know what T is

Question

I have an object which is containing an IEnumerable where T can be among a couple of Classes I have in my Data Model.

Let's say T can be either Employee or Employer. Now having a bare object, knowing that it is certainly holding an IEnumerable how Can I say which Type it is holding? Employee or Employer? Or better how can I cast or reflect the object to IEnumerable?

If I keep the type when I set the object, will it help me cast or reflect the object to what it was at first?

If I keep these

object source = db.Employees; //IEnumerable<Employee>
type dataType = Employee;

can I cast or reflect back to an IEnumerable of Employees?

please refer this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/906499/getting-type-t-from-ienumerablet — sudil ravindran pk, May 05 '14 at 05:46

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 05 '14 at 05:39

2

In general case you can use Reflection:

Type typeOfSource = source.GetType().GetGenericArguments()[0];

if (typeOfSource == typeof(Employee)) {
  ...
}
else if (typeOfSource == typeof(Employer)) {
  ...
}

it's an overshoot in a simple case with two types only, but can be useful if you have a really entangled code.

answered May 05 '14 at 05:39

Dmitry Bychenko

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Thanks Dmitry but I have several types and I cannot mention them because I want the code to act dynamically. – Mahdi Tahsildari May 05 '14 at 06:20

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 05 '14 at 05:35

0

tYou can try the as operator

var otherEmployess = source as IEnumerable<Employee>;

if(otherEmployess != null)
{
        // use otherEmployees
}

Alternatively you can case to IEnumerable<Employee> but that will throw an exception if the type is not IEnumerable<Employee>

answered May 05 '14 at 05:35

NeddySpaghetti

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I would imagine that `db.Employees` would always be an `IEnumerable`, so why the safe cast? I think the OP may just not know how to perform a cast in general. – Ed S. May 05 '14 at 05:37

Cast an object to IEnumerable where I know what T is

2 Answers2