Input string was not in a correct format

Question

I'm new with C#, I have some basic knowledge in Java but I can't get this code to run properly.

It's just a basic calculator, but when I run the program VS2008 gives me this error:

I did almost the same program but in java using JSwing and it worked perfectly.

Here's the form of c#:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace calculadorac
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {

    int a, b, c;
    String resultado;

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        a = Int32.Parse(textBox1.Text);
        b = Int32.Parse(textBox2.Text);
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        add();
        result();
    }

    private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        substract();
        result();
    }

    private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        clear();
    }

    private void add()
    {
        c = a + b;
        resultado = Convert.ToString(c);
    }

    private void substract()
    {
        c = a - b;
        resultado = Convert.ToString(c);
    }

    private void result()
    {
        label1.Text = resultado;
    }

    private void clear()
    {
        label1.Text = "";
        textBox1.Text = "";
        textBox2.Text = "";
    }
}

What can be the problem? Is there a way to solve it?

PS: I also tried

a = Convert.ToInt32(textBox1.text);
b = Convert.ToInt32(textBox2.text);

and it didn't work.

Answer 1

The error means that the string you're trying to parse an integer from doesn't actually contain a valid integer.

It's extremely unlikely that the text boxes will contain a valid integer immediately when the form is created - which is where you're getting the integer values. It would make much more sense to update a and b in the button click events (in the same way that you are in the constructor). Also, check out the Int.TryParse method - it's much easier to use if the string might not actually contain an integer - it doesn't throw an exception so it's easier to recover from.