What is the C# equivalent of NaN or IsNumeric?

c# parsing

What is the most efficient way of testing an input string whether it contains a numeric value (or conversely Not A Number)? I guess I can use Double.Parse or a regex (see below) but I was wondering if there is some built in way to do this, such as javascript's NaN() or IsNumeric() (was that VB, I can't remember?).

public static bool IsNumeric(this string value)
{
    return Regex.IsMatch(value, "^\\d+$");
}

This doesn't have the regex overhead

double myNum = 0;
String testVar = "Not A Number";

if (Double.TryParse(testVar, out myNum)) {
  // it is a number
} else {
  // it is not a number
}

Incidentally, all of the standard data types, with the glaring exception of GUIDs, support TryParse.

update
secretwep brought up that the value "2345," will pass the above test as a number. However, if you need to ensure that all of the characters within the string are digits, then another approach should be taken.

example 1:

public Boolean IsNumber(String s) {
  Boolean value = true;
  foreach(Char c in s.ToCharArray()) {
    value = value && Char.IsDigit(c);
  }

  return value;
}

or if you want to be a little more fancy

public Boolean IsNumber(String value) {
  return value.All(Char.IsDigit);
}

update 2 ( from @stackonfire to deal with null or empty strings)

public Boolean IsNumber(String s) { 
    Boolean value = true; 
    if (s == String.Empty || s == null) { 
        value=false; 
    } else { 
        foreach(Char c in s.ToCharArray()) { 
            value = value && Char.IsDigit(c); 
        } 
    } return value; 
}

I prefer something like this, it lets you decide what NumberStyle to test for.

public static Boolean IsNumeric(String input, NumberStyles numberStyle) {
    Double temp;
    Boolean result = Double.TryParse(input, numberStyle, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture, out temp);
    return result;
}

In addition to the previous correct answers it is probably worth pointing out that "Not a Number" (NaN) in its general usage is not equivalent to a string that cannot be evaluated as a numeric value. NaN is usually understood as a numeric value used to represent the result of an "impossible" calculation - where the result is undefined. In this respect I would say the Javascript usage is slightly misleading. In C# NaN is defined as a property of the single and double numeric types and is used to refer explicitly to the result of diving zero by zero. Other languages use it to represent different "impossible" values.

I know this has been answered in many different ways, with extensions and lambda examples, but a combination of both for the simplest solution.

public static bool IsNumeric(this String s)
{
    return s.All(Char.IsDigit);
}

or if you are using Visual Studio 2015 (C# 6.0 or greater) then

public static bool IsNumeric(this String s) => s.All(Char.IsDigit);

Awesome C#6 on one line. Of course this is limited because it just tests for only numeric characters.

To use, just have a string and call the method on it, such as:

bool IsaNumber = "123456".IsNumeric();

Yeah, IsNumeric is VB. Usually people use the TryParse() method, though it is a bit clunky. As you suggested, you can always write your own.

int i;
if (int.TryParse(string, out i))
{

}

What is the C# equivalent of NaN or IsNumeric?

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