Question

public class PeopleCollection : IEnumerable
{
    private Dictionary<string, Person> listPeople = new Dictionary<string, Person>();

    // This indexer returns a person based on a string index.
    public Person this[string name]
    {
        get { 
            return (Person)listPeople[name]; // **Is this cast necessary?**
        }
        set { 
            listPeople[name] = value; 
        }
    }
    ..
}

Question: should we cast the return value from listPeople[name] to Person?

Thank you

Answer 1

No, it is not needed. In Dictionary<TKey, TValue> the indexer is declared as:

public TValue this[TKey key] { get; set; }

For the Dictionary<string, Person> in the listPeople field, TValue is replaced with Person, so the indexer will return a reference to a Person object.