

Convert String to Int in C#

Smokestack - 01/2012.  Copyright © Steve Lautenschlager


Converting a string to an int is one of the easiest things to do in C# and it's also one of the most common. There are are couple of different ways you could do this.

Using TryParse


string intString = "234";
int i = 0;
if (!Int32.TryParse(intString, out i))
   i = -1;
return i;

Using TryParse with Nullable Integer

When the above example fails to parse the string as a valid integer, you can see that we just set it to -1. This doesn't work too well if -1 one is a meaningful value in your program. Instead, we could parse the string and return a nullable int where the null value indicates that the input string was not a valid integer.

private int? ConvertStringToInt(string intString)
   int i=0;
   return (Int32.TryParse(intString, out i) ? i : (int?)null);

Using Convert

There is yet another way to parse a string to an integer which uses the Convert method, but this is a little less convenient than the previous example because we have to manage exceptions if something goes wrong. Exceptions are also expensive to throw so you don't generally want these to be an expected part of the flow of your program. This is especially true if the exceptions are throwing in a loop where there is the potential for a lot of them. This could really slow down your program. You'd be better in that case to use TryParse or maybe even Regex to validate the string is in the form you desire before trying the conversion.

int i = 0;
   i = System.Convert.ToInt32(intString);
catch (FormatException)
   // the FormatException is thrown when the string text does 
   // not represent a valid integer.
catch (OverflowException)
   // the OverflowException is thrown when the string is a valid integer, 
   // but is too large for a 32 bit integer.  Use Convert.ToInt64 in
   // this case.

There are benefits to using Convert over TryParse when you need to know why the parsing failed.

Also unlike the TryParse method, the Convert method has many overloads which allow you to convert almost any type to an integer. Here are just a few examples:

int i = 0;

// bool to Int32
bool b = true;
i = Convert.ToInt32(b);

// byte to Int32
byte bt = 3;
i = Convert.ToInt32(bt);

// char to Int32
char c = 'A';
i = Convert.ToInt32(c);

// DateTime to Int32
DateTime dt = DateTime.Now;
i = Convert.ToInt32(dt);

// Decimal to Int32
decimal d = 25.678m;
i = Convert.ToInt32(d);

// double to Int32
double db = 0.007234;
i = Convert.ToInt32(db);

That's just a few of the 19 or so different overloads for the Convert method. For all of them visit the MSDN documentation on Convert.ToInt32.