Is it possible to assign a base class object to a

Question

Is it possible to assign a base class object to a derived class reference with an explicit typecast in C#?.

I have tried it and it creates a run-time error.

Answer 1

No. A reference to a derived class must actually refer to an instance of the derived class (or null). Otherwise how would you expect it to behave?

For example:

object o = new object();
string s = (string) o;
int i = s.Length; // What can this sensibly do?

If you want to be able to convert an instance of the base type to the derived type, I suggest you write a method to create an appropriate derived type instance. Or look at your inheritance tree again and try to redesign so that you don't need to do this in the first place.

Answer 2

There actually IS a way to do this. Think about how you might use Newtonsoft JSON to deserialize an object from json. It will (or at least can) ignore missing elements and populate all the elements that it does know about.

So here's how I did it. A small code sample will follow my explanation.

1. Create an instance of your object from the base class and populate it accordingly.

2. Using the "jsonconvert" class of Newtonsoft json, serialize that object into a json string.

3. Now create your sub class object by deserializing with the json string created in step 2. This will create an instance of your sub class with all the properties of the base class.

This works like a charm! So.. when is this useful? Some people asked when this would make sense and suggested changing the OP's schema to accommodate the fact that you can't natively do this with class inheritance (in .Net).

In my case, I have a settings class that contains all the "base" settings for a service. Specific services have more options and those come from a different DB table, so those classes inherit the base class. They all have a different set of options. So when retrieving the data for a service, it's much easier to FIRST populate the values using an instance of the base object. One method to do this with a single DB query. Right after that, I create the sub class object using the method outlined above. I then make a second query and populate all the dynamic values on the sub class object.

The final output is a derived class with all the options set. Repeating this for additional new sub classes takes just a few lines of code. It's simple, and it uses a very tried and tested package (Newtonsoft) to make the magic work.

This example code is vb.Net, but you can easily convert to c#.

' First, create the base settings object.
    Dim basePMSettngs As gtmaPayMethodSettings = gtmaPayments.getBasePayMethodSetting(payTypeId, account_id)
    Dim basePMSettingsJson As String = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(basePMSettngs, Formatting.Indented)

    ' Create a pmSettings object of this specific type of payment and inherit from the base class object
    Dim pmSettings As gtmaPayMethodAimACHSettings = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(Of gtmaPayMethodAimACHSettings)(basePMSettingsJson)

Answer 3

You can cast a variable that is typed as the base-class to the type of a derived class; however, by necessity this will do a runtime check, to see if the actual object involved is of the correct type.

Once created, the type of an object cannot be changed (not least, it might not be the same size). You can, however, convert an instance, creating a new instance of the second type - but you need to write the conversion code manually.

Answer 4

Expanding on @ybo's answer - it isn't possible because the instance you have of the base class isn't actually an instance of the derived class. It only knows about the members of the base class, and doesn't know anything about those of the derived class.

The reason that you can cast an instance of the derived class to an instance of the base class is because the derived class actually already is an instance of the base class, since it has those members already. The opposite cannot be said.

Answer 5

I combined some portions of the previous answers (thanks to those authors) and put together a simple static class with two methods that we're using.

Yes, it's simple, no it doesn't cover all scenarios, yes it could be expanded and made better, no it's not perfect, yes it could possibly be made more efficient, no it's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, yes there are full-on robust nuget package object mappers out there that are way better for heavy use, etc etc, yada yada - but it works for our basic needs though :)

And of course it will try to map values from any object to any object, derived or not (only the public properties that are named the same of course - ignores the rest).

USAGE:

SesameStreetCharacter puppet = new SesameStreetCharacter() { Name = "Elmo", Age = 5 };

// creates new object of type "RealPerson" and assigns any matching property 
// values from the puppet object 
// (this method requires that "RealPerson" have a parameterless constructor )
RealPerson person = ObjectMapper.MapToNewObject<RealPerson>(puppet);

// OR

// create the person object on our own 
// (so RealPerson can have any constructor type that it wants)
SesameStreetCharacter puppet = new SesameStreetCharacter() { Name = "Elmo", Age = 5 };
RealPerson person = new RealPerson("tall") {Name = "Steve"};

// maps and overwrites any matching property values from 
// the puppet object to the person object so now our person's age will get set to 5 and
// the name "Steve" will get overwritten with "Elmo" in this example
ObjectMapper.MapToExistingObject(puppet, person);

STATIC UTILITY CLASS:

public static class ObjectMapper
{
    // the target object is created on the fly and the target type 
    // must have a parameterless constructor (either compiler-generated or explicit) 
    public static Ttarget MapToNewObject<Ttarget>(object sourceobject) where Ttarget : new()
    {
        // create an instance of the target class
        Ttarget targetobject = (Ttarget)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(Ttarget));

        // map the source properties to the target object
        MapToExistingObject(sourceobject, targetobject);

        return targetobject;
    }

    // the target object is created beforehand and passed in
    public static void MapToExistingObject(object sourceobject, object targetobject)
    {
        // get the list of properties available in source class
        var sourceproperties = sourceobject.GetType().GetProperties().ToList();

        // loop through source object properties
        sourceproperties.ForEach(sourceproperty => {

            var targetProp = targetobject.GetType().GetProperty(sourceproperty.Name);

            // check whether that property is present in target class and is writeable
            if (targetProp != null && targetProp.CanWrite)
            {
                // if present get the value and map it
                var value = sourceobject.GetType().GetProperty(sourceproperty.Name).GetValue(sourceobject, null);
                targetobject.GetType().GetProperty(sourceproperty.Name).SetValue(targetobject, value, null);
            }
        });
    }
}

Answer 6

No, see this question which I asked - Upcasting in .NET using generics

The best way is to make a default constructor on the class, construct and then call an Initialise method