What is the proper way to check for null values?

Question

I love the null-coalescing operator because it makes it easy to assign a default value for nullable types.

 int y = x ?? -1;

That\'s great,

Answer 1

If it will always be a string, you can cast:

string y = (string)Session["key"] ?? "none";

This has the advantage of complaining instead of hiding the mistake if someone stuffs an int or something in Session["key"]. ;)