We’ve all converted strings to integers using the handy Parse and TryParse methods of the Int structure. Both methods have an overload, which takes a nice little enumeration called NumberStyles, that gives you some finer grain control of how you parse those strings.

An example will shine a light on what I am going on about. Firstly, imagine you have a string which contains spaces and a negative integer. You want to make sure that your integer gets parsed properly. You could write the following code:

        // Parse the string, allowing a leading sign, and ignoring leading and trailing white spaces.
        string num = "    -22   ";
        int val;
        bool result = int.TryParse(num, NumberStyles.AllowLeadingSign | NumberStyles.AllowLeadingWhite | NumberStyles.AllowTrailingWhite, null, out val);

        // val will have a value of -22

Another example is where you may want to parse a string, containing a number in brackets, to a negative integer value. That can be achieved using the NumberStyles.AllowParentheses enumeration value:

num = "(37)";
val = int.Parse(num, NumberStyles.AllowParentheses);

// val will have a value of -37

There’s a whole raft of other values for this enumeration, which gives you considerable flexibility in controlling how you parse strings into integers. You’ll find them in the System.Globalization namespace. Have a play, next time you’re bored!