Cast to generic type in C#

Question

I have a Dictionary to map a certain type to a certain generic object for that type. For example:

typeof(LoginMessage) maps to MessageProcessor

        

Answer 1

You can't do that. You could try telling your problem from a more high level point of view (i.e. what exactly do you want to accomplish with the casted variable) for a different solution.

You could go with something like this:

 public abstract class Message { 
     // ...
 }
 public class Message : Message {
 }

 public abstract class MessageProcessor {
     public abstract void ProcessMessage(Message msg);
 }
 public class SayMessageProcessor : MessageProcessor {
     public override void ProcessMessage(Message msg) {
         ProcessMessage((Message)msg);
     }
     public void ProcessMessage(Message msg) {
         // do the actual processing
     }
 }

 // Dispatcher logic:
 Dictionary messageProcessors = {
    { typeof(Say), new SayMessageProcessor() },
    { typeof(string), new StringMessageProcessor() }
 }; // properly initialized

 messageProcessors[msg.GetType().GetGenericArguments()[0]].ProcessMessage(msg);