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Is there a better alternative than this to 'switch on type'?

I need to iterate through all properties of my class and to check if its type of int the i need to do something, if its string .. then do something. I need it using switch-case. Here i am using switch in the following manner, but it asks for some constant. see the code below:

 public static bool ValidateProperties(object o)
{
    if(o !=null)
    {
        var sourceType = o.GetType();
        var properties = sourceType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);
        foreach (var property in properties)
        {
            var type = property.GetType();
            switch (type)
            {
                *case typeof(int):* getting error here
                    // d
            }
        }
    }
}

Also i want to know , what check should I use, typeof(int) or typeof(Int32)?

Answer 1

You cannot use a switch block to test values of type Type. Compiling your code should give you an error saying something like:

A switch expression or case label must be a bool, char, string,
integral, enum, or corresponding nullable type

You’ll need to use if–else statements instead.

Also: typeof(int) and typeof(Int32) are equivalent. int is a keyword and Int32 is the type name.

UPDATE

If you expect that most types will be intrinsic you may improve performance by using a switch block with Type.GetTypeCode(...).

For example:

switch (Type.GetTypeCode(type))
{
    case TypeCode.Int32:
        // It's an int
        break;

    case TypeCode.String:
        // It's a string
        break;

    // Other type code cases here...

    default:
        // Fallback to using if-else statements...
        if (type == typeof(MyCoolType))
        {
            // ...
        }
        else if (type == typeof(MyOtherType))
        {
            // ...
        } // etc...
}