Quick question for you all to take your mind off databases

If I have an "object" that I know to be a string, and I want to compare it to a string, is there any difference between:

if ( (string) myObject == "HELLO" )

and

if (myObject.ToString() == "HELLO")

I'm wondering about boxing, but I guess both operations are the same in this case....

Boxing occurs when you store a value type in an object reference, and a string is not a value type

In your example, boxing doesn't occur. Though if you're not sure, simply do if(myObject.Equals("HELLO")) { //... }

that way, you're always safe. '==' is a hardcoded overloaded operator for strings, it normally does a reference (instance) compare. if myObject is a string, equals is overloaded in the string object and will do a value compare with whatever you pass in

Thanks for the info Frans

I don't know why, but I have a mental block when it comes to strings - I always think of them as value types which is so obviously not true

MattWoberts wrote:

Thanks for the info Frans

I don't know why, but I have a mental block when it comes to strings - I always think of them as value types which is so obviously not true

I beleive that in the VB6 days strings were value types, so that could be where youre getting hung up (if your an old vb 6 programmer)