A few helper methods in C#

A few helper methods in C#

Just a few methods I find myself using in a lot of projects...

public static int ConvertToInt(this string value, int def)
{
int result;
return Int32.TryParse(value, out result) ? result : def;
}
public static int ConvertToInt(this string value)
{
return ConvertToInt(value, -1);
}

Usage:

string s = "123";
Console.WriteLine(s.ConvertToInt());

public static void ForEach<T>(this IEnumerable<T> set, Action<T> action)
{
Debug.Assert(set != null, "set");
Debug.Assert(action != null, "action");
foreach (var item in set)
action(item);
}
public static void ForEach(this IEnumerable set, Action<object> action)
{
Debug.Assert(set != null, "set");
Debug.Assert(action != null, "action");
foreach (var item in set)
action(item);
}

I find it much more expressive to use this ForEach extension method instead of a foreach loop:

list.ForEach(item => { ... do something with item ... });

rather than

foreach(var item in list)
{ ... do something with item ... }

It's probably just a quirk of mine, but I prefer it.

public static string AsXML(this object obj)
{
if (obj == null)
return "<NULL />";
string str;
Encoding utf8 = new UTF8Encoding();
var objType = obj.GetType();
var xmlatt = (XmlTypeAttribute) Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(objType, typeof (XmlTypeAttribute));
using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
using (var x = new XmlTextWriter(ms, utf8) {Formatting = Formatting.Indented})
{
var xs = xmlatt == null ? new XmlSerializer(objType) : new XmlSerializer(objType, xmlatt.Namespace);
xs.Serialize(x, obj);
str = utf8.GetString(ms.GetBuffer(), 0, (int) ms.Length);
}
return str;
}
public static object AsObject(this string xml, Type type)
{
using (var sr = new StringReader(xml))
return new XmlSerializer(type).Deserialize(sr);
}
public static T As<T>(this string xml) where T : class
{
return xml.AsObject(typeof (T)) as T;
}

Good when you need to (de)serialize pesky objects. Usage:

MyClass x = new MyClass();
string s = x.AsXML();
x = s.As<MyClass>();

Comments