Cast to generic type in C#

Question

I have a Dictionary to map a certain type to a certain generic object for that type. For example:

typeof(LoginMessage) maps to MessageProcessor

        

Answer 1

Please see if following solution works for you. The trick is to define a base processor interface which takes a base type of message.

interface IMessage
{
}

class LoginMessage : IMessage
{
}

class LogoutMessage : IMessage
{
}

class UnknownMessage : IMessage
{
}

interface IMessageProcessor
{
    void PrcessMessageBase(IMessage msg);
}

abstract class MessageProcessor : IMessageProcessor where T : IMessage
{
    public void PrcessMessageBase(IMessage msg)
    {
        ProcessMessage((T)msg);
    }

    public abstract void ProcessMessage(T msg);

}

class LoginMessageProcessor : MessageProcessor
{
    public override void ProcessMessage(LoginMessage msg)
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Handled by LoginMsgProcessor");
    }
}

class LogoutMessageProcessor : MessageProcessor
{
    public override void ProcessMessage(LogoutMessage msg)
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Handled by LogoutMsgProcessor");
    }
}

class MessageProcessorTest
{
    /// 

    /// IMessage Type and the IMessageProcessor which would process that type.
    /// It can be further optimized by keeping IMessage type hashcode
    /// 
    private Dictionary msgProcessors = 
                                new Dictionary();
    bool processorsLoaded = false;

    public void EnsureProcessorsLoaded()
    {
        if(!processorsLoaded)
        {
            var processors =
                from processorType in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes()
                where processorType.IsClass && !processorType.IsAbstract &&
                      processorType.GetInterface(typeof(IMessageProcessor).Name) != null
                select Activator.CreateInstance(processorType);

            foreach (IMessageProcessor msgProcessor in processors)
            {
                MethodInfo processMethod = msgProcessor.GetType().GetMethod("ProcessMessage");
                msgProcessors.Add(processMethod.GetParameters()[0].ParameterType, msgProcessor);
            }

            processorsLoaded = true;
        }
    }

    public void ProcessMessages()
    {
        List msgList = new List();
        msgList.Add(new LoginMessage());
        msgList.Add(new LogoutMessage());
        msgList.Add(new UnknownMessage());

        foreach (IMessage msg in msgList)
        {
            ProcessMessage(msg);
        }
    }

    public void ProcessMessage(IMessage msg)
    {
        EnsureProcessorsLoaded();
        IMessageProcessor msgProcessor = null;
        if(msgProcessors.TryGetValue(msg.GetType(), out msgProcessor))
        {
            msgProcessor.PrcessMessageBase(msg);
        }
        else
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Processor not found");
        }
    }

    public static void Test()
    {
        new MessageProcessorTest().ProcessMessages();
    }
}