How can I convert a dropdown field value to an integer within a hash?

Question

I'm setting up a twitter feed with craft.twitter.get() and I need to convert a dropdown value to an integer. Here is my code far:

{% set cacheTime = sidebarBlock.twitterFeedCacheTime %}
{% set tweets = craft.twitter.get('statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name='~ sidebarBlock.twitterFeedUsername ~'&count='~ sidebarBlock.twitterFeedTweetCount ~ '&', { exclude_replies: sidebarBlock.twitterFeedIncludeReplies, include_rts: sidebarBlock.twitterFeedIncludeRetweets, }, {}, true, cacheTime) %}
{% if tweets %}
<div class="twitter-feed">
  <h4>{{ sidebarBlock.twitterFeedTitle }}</h4>
  {% for tweet in tweets %}
  <div class="tweet">
    <p>
      <a class="twitter-screen-name" href="http://twitter.com{{ tweet.user.screen_name|raw }}" target="_blank">@{{ tweet.user.screen_name|raw }}</a>: <span class="tiny">{{ tweet.created_at |nicetime('m-d-Y') }}</span><br/>
      {{tweet| tweetLink(newWindow='true') | raw}}
    </p>
  </div>
  {% endfor %}
</div>
{% endif %} 

It seems that no matter what I try on twitterFeedcacheTime it returns a string to integer conversion error:

Object of class Craft\SingleOptionFieldData could not be converted to int

/craft/app/etc/cache/FileCache.php(85)

73      * @param  string  $value  The value to be cached
74      * @param  integer $expire The number of seconds in which the cached value will expire. 0 means never expire.
75      * @return boolean true    If the value is successfully stored into cache, false otherwise
76      */
77     protected function setValue($key, $value, $expire)
78     {
79         if (!$this->_gced && mt_rand(0, 1000000) < $this->getGCProbability())
80         {
81             $this->gc();
82             $this->_gced = true;
83         }
84 
85         if($expire <= 0)
86         {
87             $expire = 31536000; // 1 year
88         }
89 
90         $expire += time();
91 
92         $cacheFile = $this->getCacheFile($key);
93 
94         if ($this->directoryLevel > 0)
95         {
96             IOHelper::createFolder(IOHelper::getFolderName($cacheFile), IOHelper::getWritableFolderPermissions());
97         }

Answer 1

Give this a shot:

 {% set cacheTime = sidebarBlock.twitterFeedCacheTime.value %}