Type safe generic conversion from string?

[Merrion]

Has anyone got a good bit of code to turn a string into a given type in a type-safe manner

i.e.

Public Shared Function FromString(Of TReturn)(ByVal stringValue As String) As TReturn
 
        If (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(stringValue)) Then
            If GetType(TReturn).IsPrimitive Then
                'get the default
 
            Else
                Return Nothing
            End If
        Else
            If GetType(TReturn).IsPrimitive Then
 
 
            Else
 
 
            End If
        End If
 
 
    End Function

Anyone got some good ideas on filling in those blanks?

[TnTinMN]

Perhaps something like this:

Public Shared Function FromString(Of TReturn)(ByVal stringValue As String) As TReturn
	If (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(stringValue)) Then
		Return CType(Nothing, TReturn)
	Else
		Return CTypeDynamic(Of TReturn)(stringValue)
	End If
End Function

Edit: After reviewing the CTypeDynamic code, I am withdrawing my previous recommendation to perform a check for IConvertible as: 1) the code I presented was a bogus implementation even-though it worked and 2) the CTypeDynamic method includes those checks with the proper implementation for the intrinsic types (Single, Integer, Boolean, etc.).

For non-intrinsic (i.e. User-code defined classes) you could add addition checks for specific type information to determine a proper conversion route.