Question

I really should be able to get this, but I’m just to the point where I think it’d be easier to ask.

In the C# function:

public static T GetValue<T>(String value) where T:new() {    //Magic happens here } 

What’s a good implementation for the magic? The idea behind this is that I have xml to parse and the desired values are often primitives (bool, int, string, etc.) and this is the perfect place to use generics… but a simple solution is eluding me at the moment.

btw, here’s a sample of the xml I’d need to parse

<Items>     <item>         <ItemType>PIANO</ItemType>         <Name>A Yamaha piano</Name>         <properties>             <allowUpdates>false</allowUpdates>             <allowCopy>true</allowCopy>         </properties>        </item>     <item>         <ItemType>PIANO_BENCH</ItemType>         <Name>A black piano bench</Name>         <properties>             <allowUpdates>true</allowUpdates>             <allowCopy>false</allowCopy>             <url>www.yamaha.com</url>         </properties>     </item>     <item>         <ItemType>DESK_LAMP</ItemType>         <Name>A Verilux desk lamp</Name>         <properties>             <allowUpdates>true</allowUpdates>             <allowCopy>true</allowCopy>             <quantity>2</quantity>         </properties>     </item> </Items> 

Answer 1

I would suggest instead of trying to parse XML yourself, you try to create classes that would deserialize from the XML into the classes. I would strongly recommend following bendewey’s answer.

But if you cannot do this, there is hope. You can use Convert.ChangeType.

public static T GetValue<T>(String value) {   return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T)); } 

And use like so

GetValue<int>('12'); // = 12 GetValue<DateTime>('12/12/98');