Checking for null before ToString()

Question

Here\'s the scenario...

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


        

Answer 1

Is it somehow possible to do something like Dale Ragan's answer above, but overriding ToString() instead of creating a new NullSafeToString() method? I'd like this (or returning "null") to be the default behaviour. The compiler (Visual C# 2010 Express) doesn't complain when I add the following method to public static class ObjectExtensions, but the method doesn't get called...

public static String ToString(this Object obj)
{
    if (obj == null)
    {
        return "null";
    }
    else
    {
        return obj.GetType().Name;
    }
}