Compile-time type checking

That's a good question, one Microsoft will be addressing in the Whidbey release of the CLR in 2004 via a new feature called generics. Generics will allow reusable types by doing compile time checks rather than runtime casts, allowing for better performance and more code reusability. For now, I see 2 options: you could write a property that would get/set object types, but would do a check first to see if it's an int, DBnull, or null. object myVar = null; public object MyProperty { get { return myVar; } set { if(value.GetType() != typeof(int) && value.GetType() != typeof(DBNull) && value != null) throw new Exception("You're only allowed to store ints, DBNull, and null types"); myVar = value; } } The other way would be to create a class that stores an int or a DBNull, then use a property to get/set an instance of that class, then in the set property, set only the int or DBNull value.

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ssswamii23y ago
That's a good question, one Microsoft will be addressing in the Whidbey release of the CLR in 2004 via a new feature called generics. Generics will allow reusable types by doing compile time checks rather than runtime casts, allowing for better performance and more code reusability. For now, I see 2 options: you could write a property that would get/set object types, but would do a check first to see if it's an int, DBnull, or null. object myVar = null; public object MyProperty { get { return myVar; } set { if(value.GetType() != typeof(int) && value.GetType() != typeof(DBNull) && value != null) throw new Exception("You're only allowed to store ints, DBNull, and null types"); myVar = value; } } The other way would be to create a class that stores an int or a DBNull, then use a property to get/set an instance of that class, then in the set property, set only the int or DBNull value.