C# string Parsing to variable types

Question

I want to parse a string into a type easily, but I don\'t want to write wrapper code for each type, I just want to be able to do \"1234\".Parse() or the like and have it return

Answer 1

This trick should work. It uses the type of the variable you're assigning to automagically:

public static class StringExtensions {
    public static ParsedString Parse(this string s) {
        return new ParsedString(s);
    }
}
public class ParsedString {
    string str;
    public ParsedString(string s) {
        str = s;
    }
    public static implicit operator int(ParsedString s) {
        return int.Parse(s.str);
    }
    public static implicit operator double(ParsedString s) {
        return double.Parse(s.str);
    }
    public static implicit operator short(ParsedString s) {
        return short.Parse(s.str);
    }
    public static implicit operator byte(ParsedString s) {
        return byte.Parse(s.str);
    }
    // ... add other supported types ...
}

Usage:

int p = "1234".Parse();

I would prefer explicitly parsing using framework provided methods rather than relying on these kind of tricks.