Checking for null before ToString()

Question

Here\'s the scenario...

if (entry.Properties[\"something\"].Value != null)
  attribs.something = entry.Properties[\"something\"].Value.ToString();
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Answer 1

Adding an empty string to an object is a common idiom that lets you do null-safe ToString conversion, like this:

attribs.something = ""+entry.Properties["something"].Value;

When entry.Properties["something"].Value is null, this quietly returns an empty string.

Edit: Starting with C# 6 you can use ?. operator to avoid null checking in an even simpler way:

attribs.something = entry.Properties["something"].Value?.ToString();
//                                                     ^^