Question

I would like to create a Split extension that would allow me to split any string to a strongly-typed list. I have a head start, but since I was going to reuse this in many projects, I would like to get input from the community (and so you can add it to your own toolbox 😉 Any ideas from here?

public static class Converters
{
    public static IEnumerable<T> Split<T>(this string source, char delimiter)
    {
        var type = typeof(T);

        //SPLIT TO INTEGER LIST
        if (type == typeof(int))
        {
            return source.Split(delimiter).Select(n => int.Parse(n)) as IEnumerable<T>;
        }

        //SPLIT TO FLOAT LIST
        if (type == typeof(float))
        {
            return source.Split(delimiter).Select(n => float.Parse(n)) as IEnumerable<T>;
        }

        //SPLIT TO DOUBLE LIST
        if (type == typeof(double))
        {
            return source.Split(delimiter).Select(n => double.Parse(n)) as IEnumerable<T>;
        }

        //SPLIT TO DECIMAL LIST
        if (type == typeof(decimal))
        {
            return source.Split(delimiter).Select(n => decimal.Parse(n)) as IEnumerable<T>;
        }

        //SPLIT TO DATE LIST
        if (type == typeof(DateTime))
        {
            return source.Split(delimiter).Select(n => DateTime.Parse(n)) as IEnumerable<T>;
        }

        //USE DEFAULT SPLIT IF NO SPECIAL CASE DEFINED
        return source.Split(delimiter) as IEnumerable<T>;
    }
}

Answer 1

Although I agree with Lee’s suggestion, I personally don’t think it’s worth defining a new extension method for something that may trivially be achieved with standard LINQ operations:

IEnumerable<int> ints = "1,2,3".Split(',').Select(int.Parse);