Strange casting behaviour. Cannot cast object (int) to long

Question

I have the following code:

int intNumber1 = 100;
object intNumber2 = 100;
bool areNumberOfTheSameType = intNumber1.GetType() == intNumber2.GetType(); // TRUE         


        

Answer 1

(Caution: Guess)

Int32 has a conversion operator to Int64 which is what gets invoked when you do the first cast. Object doesn't, so your second cast is trying to cast an object to another type which isn't a supertype (Int64 doesn't inherit Int32).

The reason why it works with var is obvious – the compiler just saves you from typing int in that case. With dynamic the runtime does all necessary checks for what needs to be done while normally the compiler would just insert either the cast or invoke the conversion operator.