Parse to Boolean or check String Value

Question

If I have a variable that pulls a string of true or false from the DB,
which would be the preferred way of checking its value?

string value = "false";

if(Boolean.Parse(value)){
   DoStuff();
}

I know there are different ways of parsing to bool - this is an example
or

string value = "false";

if(value == "true"){
   DoStuff();
}

I am pulling a lot of true/false values from the DB in string format, and want to know if these methods make any performance difference at all?

Answer 1

Use Boolean.TryParse:

string value = "false";
Boolean parsedValue;

if (Boolean.TryParse(value, out parsedValue))
{
      if (parsedValue)
      {
         // do stuff
      }
      else
      {
         // do other stuff
      }
}
else
{
   // unable to parse
}

Answer 2

The only issue I can see here is that C# does case sensitive comparisons, so if the database value was "True"

(value == "true")

would return false.

But looking at the example Boolean.Parse Method

string[] values = { null, String.Empty, "True", "False", 
                      "true", "false", "    true    ", "0", 
                      "1", "-1", "string" };
  foreach (var value in values) {
     try {
        bool flag = Boolean.Parse(value);
        Console.WriteLine("'{0}' --> {1}", value, flag);
     }
     catch (ArgumentException) {
        Console.WriteLine("Cannot parse a null string.");
     }   
     catch (FormatException) {
        Console.WriteLine("Cannot parse '{0}'.", value);
     }         
  }            

// The example displays the following output: 
//       Cannot parse a null string. 
//       Cannot parse ''. 
//       'True' --> True 
//       'False' --> False 
//       'true' --> True 
//       'false' --> False 
//       '    true    ' --> True 
//       Cannot parse '0'. 
//       Cannot parse '1'. 
//       Cannot parse '-1'. 
//       Cannot parse 'string'.

Bool.Parse seems a little bit more robust.