?? Coalesce for empty string?

Question

Something I find myself doing more and more is checking a string for empty (as in \"\" or null) and a conditional operator.

A current example:

Answer 1

I'm using a string Coalesce extension method of my own. Since those here are using LINQ, and absolutelly wasting resources for time intensive operations (I'm using it in tight loops), I'll share mine:

public static class StringCoalesceExtension
{
    public static string Coalesce(this string s1, string s2)
    {
        return string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(s1) ? s2 : s1;
    }
}

I think it is quite simple, and you don't even need to bother with null string values. Use it like this:

string s1 = null;
string s2 = "";
string s3 = "loudenvier";
string s = s1.Coalesce(s2.Coalesce(s3));
Assert.AreEqual("loudenvier", s);

I use it a lot. One of those "utility" functions you can't live without after first using it :-)