Coalesce operator in C# 2.0

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	Coalesce operator in C# 2.0

fmcypriano

8-10-2006 7:49 AM

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tags:

c#, .net, coalesce, sql

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/6550db60-f638-4522-b83a-37a428244493/957CA78B-6B1A-4F49-A91C-1D2B42947CFB/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/" href="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/" style="font-size: 11px;">onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/"><FONT size="2" face="Arial">There’s nothing wrong with this code (although in some cases, the <A href="http://www.cs.oberlin.edu/%7Ejwalker/nullObjPattern/" target="_blank">null-pattern</A> is a better alternative) but the ternary operator ?: makes the code less readable, and the fact that you have to specify the userName variable twice has always bothered me somewhat. Well, it seems that someone at Microsoft felt the same and decided to do something about it! I</FONT></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/"><P><FONT size="2" face="Courier%20New">    string name = userName ?? “&lt;no name&gt;”;</FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/"><P><FONT size="2" face="Courier%20New">    set @name = coalesce(userName, “&lt;no name&gt;”)</FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">Of course, in SQL that was already possible with the COALESCE function:</FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://onlytalkingsense.wordpress.com/2006/07/07/coalesce-goes-c/"><P><FONT size="2" face="Courier%20New">    public User findUser(string name) {
User user;
// insert some highly advanced search algo here
…
// return found user, or if nothing found, the NullUser instance
return user ?? NullUser.Instance;
}</FONT>
</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/957CA78B-6B1A-4F49-A91C-1D2B42947CFB/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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