strongly typed sessions in asp.net

Pardon me if this question has already been asked. `HttpContext.Current.Session["key"]` returns an object and we would have to cast it to that particular `Type` before we could use it. I was looking at various implementations of typed sessions http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/typedsessionstate.aspx http://weblogs.asp.net/cstewart/archive/2008/01/09/strongly-typed-session-in-asp-net.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2007/12/24/117961.aspx and I felt that we needed to add some more code (correct me if I was wrong) to the SessionManager if we wanted to add a new `Type` of object into session, either as a method or as a separate wrapper. I thought we could use generics ``` public static class SessionManager<T> where T:class { public void SetSession(string key,object objToStore) { HttpContext.Current.Session[key] = objToStore; } public T GetSession(string key) { return HttpContext.Current.Session[key] as T; } } ``` Is there any inherent advantage in using `SessionManager<ClassType>.GetSession("sessionString")` than using ``` HttpContext.Current.Session["sessionString"] as ClassType ``` - I was also thinking it would be nice to have something like `SessionManager["sessionString"] = objToStoreInSession`, but found that a static class cannot have an indexer. Is there any other way to achieve this ? My thought was create a SessionObject which would store the `Type` and the object, then add this object to Session (using a SessionManager), with the key. When retrieving, cast all objects to `SessionObject` ,get the type (say t) and the Object (say obj) and cast `obj` as `t` and return it. `public class SessionObject { public Type type {get;set;} public Object obj{get;set;} }` this would not work as well (as the return signature would be the same, but the return types will be different). Is there any other elegant way of saving/retrieving objects in session in a more type safe way