Question

Given Type a and Type b, how can I, at runtime, determine whether there’s an implicit conversion from a to b?

If that doesn’t make sense, consider the following method:

public PropertyInfo GetCompatibleProperty<T>(object instance, string propertyName)
{
   var property = instance.GetType().GetProperty(propertyName);

   bool isCompatibleProperty = !property.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(typeof(T));
   if (!isCompatibleProperty) throw new Exception("OH NOES!!!");

   return property;   
}

And here’s the calling code that I want to work:

// Since string.Length is an int property, and ints are convertible
// to double, this should work, but it doesn't. :-(
var property = GetCompatibleProperty<double>("someStringHere", "Length");

Answer 1

Note that IsAssignableFrom does NOT solve your problem. You have to use Reflection like so. Note the explicit need to handle the primitive types; these lists are per §6.1.2 (Implicit numeric conversions) of the specification.

static class TypeExtensions { 
    static Dictionary<Type, List<Type>> dict = new Dictionary<Type, List<Type>>() {
        { typeof(decimal), new List<Type> { typeof(sbyte), typeof(byte), typeof(short), typeof(ushort), typeof(int), typeof(uint), typeof(long), typeof(ulong), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(double), new List<Type> { typeof(sbyte), typeof(byte), typeof(short), typeof(ushort), typeof(int), typeof(uint), typeof(long), typeof(ulong), typeof(char), typeof(float) } },
        { typeof(float), new List<Type> { typeof(sbyte), typeof(byte), typeof(short), typeof(ushort), typeof(int), typeof(uint), typeof(long), typeof(ulong), typeof(char), typeof(float) } },
        { typeof(ulong), new List<Type> { typeof(byte), typeof(ushort), typeof(uint), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(long), new List<Type> { typeof(sbyte), typeof(byte), typeof(short), typeof(ushort), typeof(int), typeof(uint), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(uint), new List<Type> { typeof(byte), typeof(ushort), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(int), new List<Type> { typeof(sbyte), typeof(byte), typeof(short), typeof(ushort), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(ushort), new List<Type> { typeof(byte), typeof(char) } },
        { typeof(short), new List<Type> { typeof(byte) } }
    };
    public static bool IsCastableTo(this Type from, Type to) { 
        if (to.IsAssignableFrom(from)) { 
            return true; 
        }
        if (dict.ContainsKey(to) && dict[to].Contains(from)) {
            return true;
        }
        bool castable = from.GetMethods(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static) 
                        .Any( 
                            m => m.ReturnType == to &&  
                            (m.Name == "op_Implicit" ||  
                            m.Name == "op_Explicit")
                        ); 
        return castable; 
    } 
} 

Usage:

bool b = typeof(A).IsCastableTo(typeof(B));