Format Exception when converting string to short C#

Question

I'm trying to convert a string to a short in C#. But i keep getting a format exception was unhandled error.

short copies = short.Parse(mainForm.quantityBox.Text);
printDocument.PrinterSettings.Copies = copies;

The value in the quantityBox is "1".

The tip that Visual Studio gave me is not really helpfull E.G : "when converting a string to datetime parse the string to take the date before putting each variable"

Answer 1

Try adding a ToString call:

short copies = short.Parse(mainForm.quantityBox.Text.ToString());

The reason you were getting the exception is because quantityBox had a value of 1 which is an int. short.Parse() takes a string, so by casting the contents of quantityBox.Text to ToString(), no matter what value it is given, it will be converted to a string.

Answer 2

Format exception will occur if your input text value id having "." (dot) in it. Better to replace or handle this dot(.) to avoid "Input string was not in a correct format.".

This will throw error:

short val = short.Parse("4.0");                  

This will not throw any error:

short val1 = short.Parse("4");             

Answer 3

The short keyword denotes an integral data type that stores values according to the size and range shown in the following Blog