Question

I was poking around in .NET Reflector, and noticed that for reference types like “String” for example, there is an explicit overload of the “==” operator:

typeof(string).GetMethod("op_Equality", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public)

returns: System.Reflection.MethodInfo for the “==” operator.

Due to its implementation, you can’t do things like:

if("hi" == 3)  // compiler error, plus code would throw an exception even if it ran)

However, the same thing works for value types:

if((int)1 == (float)1.0)  // correctly returns true
if((int)1 == (float)1.2)  // correctly returns false

I’m trying to figure out exactly how .NET internally handles the type conversion process, so I was looking for the implementation of op_Equality() in .NET Reflector, but “int” doesn’t have one.

typeof(int).GetMethod("op_Equality", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public)

returns null.

So, where is the default implementation for the “==” operator for value types?
I’d like to be able to call it via reflection:

public bool AreEqual(object x, object y)
{
    if(x.GetType().IsValueType && y.GetType().IsValueType)
        return x == y; // Incorrect, this calls the "object" equality override
    else
        ...
}

---

Edit #1:

I tried this, but it didn’t work:

(int)1 == (float)1;                          // returns true
System.ValueType.Equals( (int)1, (float)1 ); // returns false

---

Edit #2:

Also tried this, but no love:

object x = (int)1;
object y = (float)1.0;

bool b1 = (x == y);                 // b1 = false
bool b2 = ((ValueType)x).Equals(y); // b2 = false

I beleive this .Equals operator on ValueType does not work due to this type check (ripped from .NET Reflector):

ValueType.Equals(object obj)
{
    ...

    RuntimeType type = (RuntimeType) base.GetType();
    RuntimeType type2 = (RuntimeType) obj.GetType();
    if (type2 != type)
    {
        return false;
    }

    ...

Answer 1

the evaluation of (int)1 == (float)1.0 doesn’t rely on any special == operator, just the conversion rules.

The compiler will turn this into (float)((int)1) == (float)1.0

Edit:
The rules are specified on MSDN.