How can I determine if an object can ToString into value or type name?

Question

I am writing an interop between a php service and our crm. One of the things I need to do is make sure that simple types get converted ToString() for use later in a json co

Answer 1

The ToString method is a virtual one and the default implementation is defined in the Object class and simply returns the name of the type of the object:

public virtual string ToString()
{
  return this.GetType().ToString();
}

int for example, overrides this method to return a meaningful representation.

What you can do is use reflection to detect whether a type overrides the ToString method like this:

public static bool OverridesToString(Type type)
{
    return type.GetMethod("ToString", new Type[0]).DeclaringType != typeof(object);
}

If it does, there is a very good chance that the ToString method would return something meaningful.