From within my custom top level System namespace (where I have also defined struct Int32) I am unable to access the dotnet's standard System.Int32 type. My own Systme.Int32 is hiding the dotnet's System.Int32. I have tried using global:: to fully qualify the System.Int32 name to get to dotnet's standard type , but it still keeps referencing my own type. I cannot find a way around it. Reading Eric Lippert's 11 year old answer to a related question here https://stackoverflow.com/a/3830520/423632 suggests I need to write my own compiler for this. But it should not be impossible to do.

The following code does not compile , giving the error refering to the first statement in the Main method:
" error CS0029: Cannot implicitly convert type 'int' to 'System.Int32' "

// DOES NOT COMPILE ! 

using System; 

namespace System
{


    struct Int32
    {

        public override string ToString()
        {

            return "My own Int32 lol";


        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            global::System.Int32 x = 5; // error CS0029 
            Console.WriteLine(x);
            return 0;
        }

    }

}

CodePudding user response：

One way I found is to use an extern alias:

extern alias MSCorLib;
namespace System
{
    struct Int32
    {
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return "My own Int32 lol";
        }
    }
    class Program
    {
        static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            MSCorLib::System.Int32 x = 5;
            Console.WriteLine(x);
            return 0;
        }

    }
}

If you compile this with the -reference option:

csc Program.cs -reference:MSCorLib=mscorlib.dll

Then it will print 5 as expected.

For Int32 specifically, you can also just use int:

int x = 5;

Of course, this also applies to double, float, short, etc.