String casts in .NET

Question

Why is there so may ways to convert to a string in .net? The ways I have seen are .ToString, Convert.ToString() and (string). What is the Difference.

Answer 1

.ToString() is an instance method which asks the object for its string representation. When the object is null, this will throw a exception.

(string) is a cast to the string type, which isn't a very good idea in most cases except for simple data types, since it can break (throw an exception) when it's null or an invalid cast

Convert.ToString() does a bit more checking than a simple cast, giving a more robust alternative to the cast. It will return the empty string when the object is null.