Is there a way cast an object back to it original type without specifing every case?

Question

I have an array of different type objects and I use a BinaryWriter to convert each item to its binary equivalent so I can send the structure over the network.

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Answer 1

No. The cast has to be known at compile-time, but the actual type is only known at execution time.

Note, however, that there's a better way of testing the type calling GetType. Instead of:

if (x.GetType() == typeof(byte))

Use:

if (x is byte)

EDIT: To answer the extra questions:

"What are all the types?" Well, look down the docs for BinaryWriter, I guess...

"Do I need to worry about byte and Byte?" No, byte is an alias for System.Byte in C#. They're the same type.