Generics in c# & accessing the static members of T

The problem is that TryParse isn't defined on an interface or base class anywhere, so you can't make an assumption that the type passed into your class will have that function. Unless you can contrain T in some way, you'll run into this a lot.

Constraints on Type Parameters

To access a member of a specific class or interface you need to use the Where keyword and specify the interface or base class that has the method.

In the above instance TryParse does not come from an interface or base class, so what you are trying to do above is not possible. Best just use Convert.ChangeType and a try/catch statement.

class test<T>
{
    T Method(object P)
    {
       try {
           return (T)Convert.ChangeType(P, typeof(T));
       } catch(Exception e) {
           return null;
       }
    }
}

Short answer, you can't.

Long answer, you can cheat:

public class Example
{
    internal static class Support
    {
        private delegate bool GenericParser<T>(string s, out T o);
        private static Dictionary<Type, object> parsers =
            MakeStandardParsers();
        private static Dictionary<Type, object> MakeStandardParsers()
        {
            Dictionary<Type, object> d = new Dictionary<Type, object>();
            // You need to add an entry for every type you want to cope with.
            d[typeof(int)] = new GenericParser<int>(int.TryParse);
            d[typeof(long)] = new GenericParser<long>(long.TryParse);
            d[typeof(float)] = new GenericParser<float>(float.TryParse);
            return d;
        }
        public static bool TryParse<T>(string s, out T result)
        {
            return ((GenericParser<T>)parsers[typeof(T)])(s, out result);
        }
    }
    public class Test<T>
    {
        public static T method1(string s)
        {
            T value;
            bool success = Support.TryParse(s, out value);
            return value;
        }
    }
    public static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(Test<int>.method1("23"));
        Console.WriteLine(Test<float>.method1("23.4"));
        Console.WriteLine(Test<long>.method1("99999999999999"));
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}

I made a static dictionary holding a delegate for the TryParse method of every type I might want to use. I then wrote a generic method to look up the dictionary and pass on the call to the appropriate delegate. Since every delegate has a different type, I just store them as object references and cast them back to the appropriate generic type when I retrieve them. Note that for the sake of a simple example I have omitted error checking, such as to check whether we have an entry in the dictionary for the given type.