Generic Parse Method without Boxing

Question

I am trying to write a generic Parse method that converts and returns a strongly typed value from a NamedValueCollection. I tried two methods but both of these methods are goin

Answer 1

I'll add a little undocumented way:

public static T Convert()
{
    if (typeof(T) == typeof(int))
    {
        int a = 5;
        T value = __refvalue(__makeref(a), T);
        return value;
    }
    else if (typeof(T) == typeof(long))
    {
        long a = 6;
        T value = __refvalue(__makeref(a), T);
        return value;
    }

    throw new NotImplementedException();
}

There is little documentation about them, but they work as of C# 4.0. Read for example here Hidden Features of C#? Remember that undocumented means unsupported, blah blah blah could not work in the future blah blah blah if you use them the devil will come for you blah blah blah :-)