Shortest way to check for null and assign another value if not

Question

I am pulling varchar values out of a DB and want to set the string I am assigning them to as "" if they are null. I'm currently doing it like this:

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(planRec.approved_by) == true)
  this.approved_by = "";
else
  this.approved_by = planRec.approved_by.toString();

There seems like there should be a way to do this in a single line something like:

this.approved_by = "" || planRec.approved_by.toString();

However I can't find an optimal way to do this. Is there a better way or is what I have the best way to do it?

Answer 1

Try this:

this.approved_by = IsNullOrEmpty(planRec.approved_by) ? string.Empty : planRec.approved_by.toString();

You can also use the null-coalescing operator as other have said - since no one has given an example that works with your code here is one:

this.approved_by = planRec.approved_by ?? string.Empty;

But this example only works since a possible value for this.approved_by is the same as one of the potential values that you wish to set it to. For all other cases you will need to use the conditional operator as I showed in my first example.