How to achieve the C# 'as' keyword for value types in vb.net?

Question

Most of our development is done in vb.net (not my choice) and one frequently used code pattern uses an \'On Error GoTo\' followed by a \'Resume Next\' so that all database f

Answer 1

In VB 9.0, "IF" is a true coalescing operation equivalent to C#'s "??". Source MSDN:

So you could use:

oObject.Name = IF(oReader.Item("Name").Equals(DBNull.Value),string.Empty,DirectCast(oReader.Item("Name"), String))