User-defined conversion operator from base class

Question

Introduction

I am aware that \"user-defined conversions to or from a base class are not allowed\". MSDN gives, as an explanation to this rule, \"You

Answer 1

Well, when you are casting Entity to Body, you are not really casting one to another, but rather casting the IntPtr to a new entity.

Why not create an explicit conversion operator from IntPtr?

public class Entity {
    public IntPtr Pointer;

    public Entity(IntPtr pointer) {
        this.Pointer = pointer;
    }
}

public class Body : Entity {
    Body(IntPtr pointer) : base(pointer) { }

    public static explicit operator Body(IntPtr ptr) {
        return new Body(ptr);
    }

    public static void Test() {
        Entity e = new Entity(new IntPtr());
        Body body = (Body)e.Pointer;
    }
}