Question

I have some code as follows

var MyObjectInstance =  httpContext.Items[key] as MyObject

What overhead is there in this code. Does it need to deserialize the object as well as doing a cast. Is there any significant performance benefit in reducing the number of these calls?

Answer 1

HttpContext.Items really returns a HashTable (in-memory dictionary) – so call such as httpContext.Items[key] as MyObject will essentially has to

1. Look up within dictionary for the said key
2. Cast the object

There is no deserialization

Performance Benefit will be a relative term – how many times such calls are made? This would be a very fast call, unless you are making thousands of calls in a short time-frame, I would not worry too much about it.