Question

If I write a generic class like class MyGeneric<T> is it possible to write an implicit cast to type T, so I can do stuff like:

public class MyGeneric<T>
{
...
}

public class GenericProperties
{
   public MyGeneric<string> MyGenericString {get;set;}

   public void UseMyGeneric()
   {
       string sTest = MyGenericString;
       MyGenericString = "this is a test";
   }
}

Is it possible to do that by overloading operators? I know it could be done if my class wasn’t a generic…

Answer 1

Well, yes, but for the love of zombie jesus do NOT do that. It’s really confusing. You’re slightly misunderstanding the purpose of generics, I think. It’s not used to “turn” a class into that type, it’s used to have that type (MyGenericString) be ‘aware’ of the type you want, for various purposes (typically those are collection-based purposes).