C# cast Dictionary to Dictionary (Involving Reflection)

Question

Is it possible to cast a Dictionary to a consistent intermediate generic type? So I would be able to cast <

Answer 1

Consider whether casting to and from object really is necessary. I started down that path and stumbled across this article, before realising I could achieve what I needed through generics rather than conversion. For example;

class DictionaryUtils
{
    public static T ValueOrDefault(IDictionary dictionary, string key)
    {
        return dictionary.ContainsKey(key) ? dictionary[key] : default(T);
    }
}

This bit of code is much cleaner and will be faster than the equivalent conversion code shown in other answers.