.NET Type Conversion Cheats

Generic Type Parsing

I’m great and making this harder than it needs to be. Just do this:

/// <exception cref="ArgumentException"></exception>
public static T Parse<T>(this string value)
{
    try
    {
        var converter = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(typeof(T));
        return (T)converter.ConvertFromString(value);
    }
    catch
    {
        throw new ArgumentException(string.Format("Unable to parse the value: {0} to type: {1}", value, typeof(T).FullName));
    }
}