'is' versus try cast with null check

Because there's only one cast. Compare this:

if (myObj.myProp is MyType) // cast #1
{
    var myObjRef = (MyType)myObj.myProp; // needs to be cast a second time
                                         // before using it as a MyType
    ...
}

to this:

var myObjRef = myObj.myProp as MyType; // only one cast
if (myObjRef != null)
{
    // myObjRef is already MyType and doesn't need to be cast again
    ...
}

C# 7.0 supports a more compact syntax using pattern matching:

if (myObj.myProp is MyType myObjRef)
{
    ...
}

The best option is use pattern matching like that:

if (value is MyType casted){
    //Code with casted as MyType
    //value is still the same
}
//Note: casted can be used outside (after) the 'if' scope, too

There's no information yet about what actually happens below the belt. Take a look at this example:

object o = "test";
if (o is string)
{
    var x = (string) o;
}

This translates to the following IL:

IL_0000:  nop         
IL_0001:  ldstr       "test"
IL_0006:  stloc.0     // o
IL_0007:  ldloc.0     // o
IL_0008:  isinst      System.String
IL_000D:  ldnull      
IL_000E:  cgt.un      
IL_0010:  stloc.1     
IL_0011:  ldloc.1     
IL_0012:  brfalse.s   IL_001D
IL_0014:  nop         
IL_0015:  ldloc.0     // o
IL_0016:  castclass   System.String
IL_001B:  stloc.2     // x
IL_001C:  nop         
IL_001D:  ret

What matters here are the isinst and castclass calls -- both relatively expensive. If you compare that to the alternative you can see it only does an isinst check:

object o = "test";
var oAsString = o as string;
if (oAsString != null)
{

}

IL_0000:  nop         
IL_0001:  ldstr       "test"
IL_0006:  stloc.0     // o
IL_0007:  ldloc.0     // o
IL_0008:  isinst      System.String
IL_000D:  stloc.1     // oAsString
IL_000E:  ldloc.1     // oAsString
IL_000F:  ldnull      
IL_0010:  cgt.un      
IL_0012:  stloc.2     
IL_0013:  ldloc.2     
IL_0014:  brfalse.s   IL_0018
IL_0016:  nop         
IL_0017:  nop         
IL_0018:  ret

Also worth mentioning is that a value type will use unbox.any rather than castclass:

object o = 5;
if (o is int)
{
    var x = (int)o;
}

IL_0000:  nop         
IL_0001:  ldc.i4.5    
IL_0002:  box         System.Int32
IL_0007:  stloc.0     // o
IL_0008:  ldloc.0     // o
IL_0009:  isinst      System.Int32
IL_000E:  ldnull      
IL_000F:  cgt.un      
IL_0011:  stloc.1     
IL_0012:  ldloc.1     
IL_0013:  brfalse.s   IL_001E
IL_0015:  nop         
IL_0016:  ldloc.0     // o
IL_0017:  unbox.any   System.Int32
IL_001C:  stloc.2     // x
IL_001D:  nop         
IL_001E:  ret

Note however that this not necessarily translates to a faster result as we can see here. There seem to have been improvements since that question was asked though: casts seem to be performed as fast as they used to be but as and linq are now approximately 3 times faster.

'is' versus try cast with null check

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