Question

I want to write a method which converts a decimal to the smallest possible numeric type without any data loss. For examples:

• Convert(1) should return a byte
• Convert(257) should return a short
• Convert(1.1) should return a float
• and so on

The input of the method is always a decimal and the output is any of the following .NET numeric types: sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, ulong, float, double, and decimal.

I have tried using checked() to catch the OverflowException, however that approach doesn’t prevent loss. For example, checked((int)1.1) won’t throw any exception and return 1! Therefore, it’s not what I want.

Any recommendation?

Update: expected method signature

public object Convert(decimal d)
{
   // return ...
}

Answer 1

you can try to use TryParse

        short res;
        decimal value = 8913798132;
        bool s = short.TryParse(value.ToString(), out res); // returns false