How to make a Generic Type Cast function [duplicate]

Answer 1

While probably not as clean looking as the IConvertible approach, you could always use the straightforward checking typeof(T) to return a T:

public static T ReturnType(string stringValue)
{
    if (typeof(T) == typeof(int))
        return (T)(object)1;
    else if (typeof(T) == typeof(FooBar))
        return (T)(object)new FooBar(stringValue);
    else
        return default(T);
}

public class FooBar
{
    public FooBar(string something)
    {}
}