Automatic type Conversion in C#

Question

I know that you could override an object's ToString() Method, so that everytime you call an object or pass it to a function that requires a String type it will be converted to a String.

I have written several extension methods for object type 'object'

public static DateTime ToDate(this object date)
{
    return DateTime.Parse(date.ToString());
}

public static int ToInteger(this object num)
{
    return Int32.Parse(num.ToString());
}

public static long ToLong(this object num)
{
    return Int64.Parse(num.ToString());
}

so that I could just call them like this:

eventObject.Cost = row["cost"].ToString();
eventObject.EventId = row["event_id"].ToLong();

However, what I want to accomplish is to convert the row objects which is of type 'object' to its correct type based on the property types on my 'eventObject'. So, I could call it like this:

eventObject.Cost = row["cost"];
eventObject.EventId = row["event_id"];

The row is a DataRow if that matters.

Answer 1

C# supports implicit conversion for types and you can use it for your custom types like the following:

 class CustomValue
 {
     public static implicit operator int(CustomValue v)  {  return 4;  }

     public static implicit operator float(CustomValue v) {  return 4.6f;  }
 }

 class Program
 {
     static void Main(string[] args)
     {
         int x = new CustomValue(); // implicit conversion 
         float xx = new CustomValue(); // implicit conversion 
     }
 }

And supports extension methods, but doesn't support implicit conversion as an extension method like the following:

static class MyExtension
{
    // Not supported
    public static implicit operator bool(this CustomValue v)
    {
        return false;
    }
}