Convert Object to a DateTime

public static DateTime ObjectToDateTime(object o, DateTime defaultValue)
{            
    if (o == null) return defaultValue;

    DateTime dt;
    if (DateTime.TryParse(o.ToString(), out dt))
        return dt;
    else
        return defaultValue;
}

The code feels too wordy and smells bad. Is there a better way?

On the offhand chance that your object is already a DateTime, you're performing unnecessary conversions to and from strings.

if (o is DateTime)
     return (DateTime)o;

This also strikes me as something you might be doing for a database item, for example. In which case, I'd encourage you to know and trust your data types and then use existing methods of retrieval.

For example, if you have a DataTable with a column CreatedDate, you should know it's a date, what you might not know is if it has a value if the column is nullable at the database. That's fine, you can handle that in code.

var createdDate = row.Field("CreatedDate");

There we go, a DateTime?, no coding of a conversion necessary. You can even specify a default and type if to DateTime

var createdDate = row.Field("CreatedDate").GetValueOrDefault(DateTime.Now);
 var createdDate = row.Field("CreatedDate") ?? DateTime.Now;

StackExchange Code Review Q#3879, answer score: 31