Creating a generic method in C#

Question

I am trying to combine a bunch of similar methods into a generic method. I have several methods that return the value of a querystring, or null if that querystring does not

Answer 1

You can use sort of Maybe monad (though I'd prefer Jay's answer)

public class Maybe
{
    private readonly T _value;

    public Maybe(T value)
    {
        _value = value;
        IsNothing = false;
    }

    public Maybe()
    {
        IsNothing = true;
    }

    public bool IsNothing { get; private set; }

    public T Value
    {
        get
        {
            if (IsNothing)
            {
                throw new InvalidOperationException("Value doesn't exist");
            }
            return _value;
        }
    }

    public override bool Equals(object other)
    {
        if (IsNothing)
        {
            return (other == null);
        }
        if (other == null)
        {
            return false;
        }
        return _value.Equals(other);
    }

    public override int GetHashCode()
    {
        if (IsNothing)
        {
            return 0;
        }
        return _value.GetHashCode();
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        if (IsNothing)
        {
            return "";
        }
        return _value.ToString();
    }

    public static implicit operator Maybe(T value)
    {
        return new Maybe(value);
    }

    public static explicit operator T(Maybe value)
    {
        return value.Value;
    }
}

Your method would look like:

    public static Maybe GetQueryString(string key) where T : IConvertible
    {
        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString[key]) == false)
        {
            string value = HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString[key];

            try
            {
                return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));
            }
            catch
            {
                //Could not convert.  Pass back default value...
                return new Maybe();
            }
        }

        return new Maybe();
    }