[Mono-list] Boxed types in C#

[Sergey Chaban]

> in C# it seems that the System.Int32 type is 
> a value type and hence cannot hold null at all. It also seems that 
> although you can box it into a variable of type "object", there's no way 
> to express the *type* of the object in C#. 

Use generic ValueType class to pass boxed values around.
(Or, alternatively, use one of the interfaces implemented by those
wrapper structures, such as IConvertible).

Something like this:

public ValueType this[int i] {
    get {return mytable[i];}
}

public void FooBar() {
    bool ok = MyVal is Int32; //or MyVal != null
    int i = (ok ? (int)MyVal : 0);
}

Or write your own wrapper class similar to Java Integer,
but with implicit conversion operators.

Sergey