Question

I need convert a String to a decimal in C#, but this string have different formats.

For example:

“50085”

“500,85”

“500.85”

This should be convert for 500,85 in decimal. Is there is a simplified form to do this convertion using format?

Answer 1

While decimal.Parse() is the method you are looking for, you will have to provide a bit more information to it. It will not automatically pick between the 3 formats you give, you will have to tell it which format you are expecting (in the form of an IFormatProvider). Note that even with an IFormatProvider, I don’t think “50085” will be properly pulled in.

The only consistent thing I see is that it appears from your examples that you always expect two decimal places of precision. If that is the case, you could strip out all periods and commas and then divide by 100.

Maybe something like:

public decimal? CustomParse(string incomingValue)
{
    decimal val;
    if (!decimal.TryParse(incomingValue.Replace(",", "").Replace(".", ""), NumberStyles.Number, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, out val))
        return null;
    return val / 100;
}