[c#] How to make a Generic Type Cast function

Possible Duplicate:
is there a generic Parse() function that will convert a string to any type using parse?

I want to make a generic function for doing some operations, like:

ConvertValue<T>(string value)

If T is int then the function will convert the value to int and return the result.

Similarly, if T is boolean, the function will convert the value to boolean and return it.

How to write this?

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<T>(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)
    {}
}

ConvertValue( System.Object o ), then you can branch out by o.GetType() result and up-cast o to the types to work with the value.