I came across a piece of code on my travels whereby a comma-separated string was split and then parsed into long values, ultimately returned to the method caller as a list of longs. A similar method was also created for operating on and converting values to integers, not particularly DRY code, but functioned fine. All good and well, I thought, but there is no reason not to encapsulate this into a method (I opted to create a string extension) that encompasses working with value types in general. Not a 100% solution, but a start on the right track.

Thirty minutes of tinkering yielded the following string extension (and supporting unit tests), which is currently constrained to value types only but could possibly be further constrained. I’ve provided some unit test declarations to give you an idea of its usage. It has a piece of cheeky boolean handling in it which is perhaps not best placed as you can quickly end up on a dark road when shoehorning type-specific code into generic methods. For now, though it seems like an acceptable solution:

Here’s the extension for starters:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Linq;

namespace GenericExtensions
{
    public static class ObjectExtensions
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Public static string extension can convert a comma-separated list (string)
        /// into a List of type T (where T is a struct, just to make this more constrained).
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="T">The struct type to attempt a conversion to (for each value in the comma-separated string).</typeparam>
        /// <param name="csvString">The comma-separated source string to split into values and then attempt conversions on.</param>
        /// <param name="errorList">A List of type string that catches conversion errors.</param>
        /// <returns>A list containing types of T where a conversion is possible.</returns>
        public static List<T> GetValuesFromCsvString<T>(this string csvString, out List<string> errorList) where T : struct
        {
            List<T> convertedValues = new List<T>();

            errorList = new List<string>();

            // Only proceed (and attempt conversions) where the string provided contains content
            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(csvString))
            {
                // Trim up csv values (we don't want whitespace to intefer with the conversion)
                IEnumerable<string> trimmedCsvValues = csvString.Split(',').Select(csv => csv.Trim());

                // Attempt the conversion for each value in the comma-separated list (value to type T). Note errors if and when they occur and store
                // errors/converted values in the appropriate lists
                foreach (string csv in trimmedCsvValues)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        // Trigger manual conversion for bool types. Not the most ideal but sufficient for basic needs
                        if (typeof(T) == typeof(bool))
                        {
                            switch (csv.ToLowerInvariant())
                            {
                                case "1":
                                case "yes":
                                case "on":
                                    convertedValues.Add((T)Convert.ChangeType(true, typeof(T), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
                                    break;

                                case "0":
                                case "no":
                                case "off":
                                    convertedValues.Add((T)Convert.ChangeType(false, typeof(T), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
                                    break;

                                default:
                                    // Conversion is not possible
                                    throw new InvalidCastException();
                            }
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            // Standard conversion attempt for other structs
                            convertedValues.Add((T)Convert.ChangeType(csv, typeof(T), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
                        }
                    }
                    catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                        errorList.Add($"Could not convert value '{ csv }' to type '{ typeof(T).Name }'. Exception type: { ex.GetType().Name }; Exception Message: { ex.Message }");
                    }
                }
            }

            // Return successfully converted values
            return convertedValues;
        }
    }
}

Lastly, here are the unit tests to put the extension through its paces:

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace GenericExtensions.Tests
{
    [TestClass]
    public class ObjectExtensionTests
    {
        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToBool_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<bool> booleans = "1,0, 1 ,20,test,on,off,No,YES,  3.40282347E+38   , 99.9 "
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<bool>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(booleans.Count == 7);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 4);

            Assert.AreEqual(true, booleans[0]);
            Assert.AreEqual(false, booleans[1]);
            Assert.AreEqual(true, booleans[2]);
            Assert.AreEqual(true, booleans[3]);
            Assert.AreEqual(false, booleans[4]);
            Assert.AreEqual(false, booleans[5]);
            Assert.AreEqual(true, booleans[6]);
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToLong_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<long> longs = "test,99.9,9223372036854775807 ,9223372036854775808"
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<long>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(longs.Count == 1);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 3);

            Assert.AreEqual(9223372036854775807, longs[0]);
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToFloat_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<float> floats = "1,99.998, 3.40282347E+38 ,9223372036854775808, random string "
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<float>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(floats.Count == 4);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 1);

            Assert.AreEqual(1f, floats[0]);
            Assert.AreEqual(99.998f, floats[1]);
            Assert.AreEqual(3.40282347E+38f, floats[2]);
            Assert.AreEqual(9.223372E+18f, floats[3]);
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToInt_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<int> ints = "1,2147483647, random string  , 3.40282347E+38 ,-2147483649, 22 "
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<int>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(ints.Count == 3);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 3);

            Assert.AreEqual(1, ints[0]);
            Assert.AreEqual(2147483647, ints[1]);
            Assert.AreEqual(22, ints[2]);
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToShort_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<short> shorts = "1,2147483647, random string  , 32767 ,32768,-32768,-32769,-2147483649, 22 "
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<short>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(shorts.Count == 4);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 5);

            Assert.AreEqual(1, shorts[0]);
            Assert.AreEqual(32767, shorts[1]);
            Assert.AreEqual(-32768, shorts[2]);
            Assert.AreEqual(22, shorts[3]);
        }

        [TestMethod]
        public void GetValuesFromCsvString_ConversionToUInt16_InRangeValuesConverted()
        {
            List<UInt16> UInt16s = "1,2147483647, random string, -1, -22,  , 65535 ,65536,-32768,-32769,-2147483649, 22 "
                .GetValuesFromCsvString<UInt16>(out List<string> errorList);

            Assert.IsTrue(UInt16s.Count == 3);
            Assert.IsTrue(errorList.Count == 9);

            Assert.AreEqual(1, UInt16s[0]);
            Assert.AreEqual(65535, UInt16s[1]);
            Assert.AreEqual(22, UInt16s[2]);
        }
    }
}

A very quick prototype piece of code for sure, which needs further testing. I’d also like to performance test this implementation and perhaps get a better idea of how Convert.ChangeType works under the hood. I hope everyone is having a super weekend and take care until the next time. 🙂