Cast received object to a List object or IEnumerable object

Question

I m trying to perform the following cast    private void MyMethod object myObject            if myObject is IEnumerable                  List lt object gt  collection    List lt object gt  myObject                do something                else                       do something               But I always end up with the following excepction     Unable to cast object of type  System Collections Generic List1 MySpecificType   to type  System Collections Generic List1 System Object      I really need this to work because this method needs to be very generic to receive single objects and collections both of unspecified types     Is this possible  or is there another way of accomplishing this     Thank you

User · Answer

Problem is  you re trying to upcast to a richer object  You simply need to add the items to a new list    if  myObject is IEnumerable       List lt object gt  list   new List lt object gt        var enumerator     IEnumerable  myObject  GetEnumerator       while  enumerator MoveNext               list Add enumerator Current

User · Answer

C  4 will have covariant and contravariant template parameters  but until then you have to do something nongeneric like  IList collection    IList myObject

User · Answer

Have to join the fun         private void TestBench                    An object to test         string   stringEnumerable   new string      Easy    as    Pi              ObjectListFromUnknown stringEnumerable              private void ObjectListFromUnknown object o                if  typeof IEnumerable lt object gt   IsAssignableFrom o GetType                           List lt object gt  listO     IEnumerable lt object gt  o  ToList                   Test it             foreach  var v in listO                                Console WriteLine v

User · Answer

How about  List lt object gt  collection   new List lt object gt   IEnumerable myObject

User · Answer

You can t cast an IEnumerable lt T gt  to a List lt T gt    But you can accomplish this using LINQ   var result     IEnumerable myObject  Cast lt object gt    ToList

User · Answer

Nowadays it s like  var collection   new List lt object gt  objectVar

User · Answer

Do you actually need more information than plain IEnumerable gives you  Just cast it to that and use foreach with it  I face exactly the same situation in some bits of Protocol Buffers  and I ve found that casting to IEnumerable  or IList to access it like a list  works very well

User · Answer

This Code worked for me  List lt Object gt  collection   new List lt Object gt   IEnumerable lt Object gt  myObject

User · Answer

You need to type cast using as operator like this   private void MyMethod object myObject        if myObject is IEnumerable          List lt object gt  collection   myObject as List lt object gt             do something        else               do something

[c#] Cast received object to a List<object> or IEnumerable<object>

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