Upcasting and downcasting in C#

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Object-oriented Programming in C#
Specialization, Extension, and Inheritance

Upcasting and downcasting in C#

Upcasting converts an object of a specialized type to a more general type

Downcasting converts an object from a general type to a more specialized type

A specialization hierarchy of bank accounts

    BankAccount    ba1,
                   ba2 =   new BankAccount("John", 250.0M, 0.01);
    LotteryAccount la1,
                   la2 =   new LotteryAccount("Bent", 100.0M);

    ba1 = la2;                    // upcasting   - OK
//  la1 = ba2;                    // downcasting - Illegal 
                                  //   discovered at compile time
//  la1 = (LotteryAccount)ba2;    // downcasting - Illegal
                                  //   discovered at run time
    la1 = (LotteryAccount)ba1;    // downcasting - OK 
                                  //   ba1 already refers to a LotteryAccount

An illustration of upcasting and downcasting.