[c#] "Input string was not in a correct format."

Problems

There are some possible cases why the error occurs:

  1. Because textBox1.Text contains only number, but the number is too big/too small

  2. Because textBox1.Text contains:

    • a) non-number (except space in the beginning/end, - in the beginning) and/or
    • b) thousand separators in the applied culture for your code without specifying NumberStyles.AllowThousands or you specify NumberStyles.AllowThousands but put wrong thousand separator in the culture and/or
    • c) decimal separator (which should not exist in int parsing)

NOT OK Examples:

Case 1

a = Int32.Parse("5000000000"); //5 billions, too large
b = Int32.Parse("-5000000000"); //-5 billions, too small
//The limit for int (32-bit integer) is only from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647

Case 2 a)

a = Int32.Parse("a189"); //having a 
a = Int32.Parse("1-89"); //having - but not in the beginning
a = Int32.Parse("18 9"); //having space, but not in the beginning or end

Case 2 b)

NumberStyles styles = NumberStyles.AllowThousands;
a = Int32.Parse("1,189"); //not OK, no NumberStyles.AllowThousands
b = Int32.Parse("1,189", styles, new CultureInfo("fr-FR")); //not OK, having NumberStyles.AllowThousands but the culture specified use different thousand separator

Case 2 c)

NumberStyles styles = NumberStyles.AllowDecimalPoint;
a = Int32.Parse("1.189", styles); //wrong, int parse cannot parse decimal point at all!

Seemingly NOT OK, but actually OK Examples:

Case 2 a) OK

a = Int32.Parse("-189"); //having - but in the beginning
b = Int32.Parse(" 189 "); //having space, but in the beginning or end

Case 2 b) OK

NumberStyles styles = NumberStyles.AllowThousands;
a = Int32.Parse("1,189", styles); //ok, having NumberStyles.AllowThousands in the correct culture
b = Int32.Parse("1 189", styles, new CultureInfo("fr-FR")); //ok, having NumberStyles.AllowThousands and correct thousand separator is used for "fr-FR" culture

Solutions

In all cases, please check the value of textBox1.Text with your Visual Studio debugger and make sure that it has purely-acceptable numerical format for int range. Something like this:

1234

Also, you may consider of

  1. using TryParse instead of Parse to ensure that the non-parsed number does not cause you exception problem.
  2. check the result of TryParse and handle it if not true

    int val;
    bool result = int.TryParse(textbox1.Text, out val);
    if (!result)
        return; //something has gone wrong
    //OK, continue using val
    

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