In your opinion what is more readable: ?? (operator) or use of if's

Question

I have a method that will receive a string, but before I can work with it, I have to convert it to int. Sometimes it can be null and I ha

Answer 1

[Assuming you only need to check for null, and not empty string also, as others have pointed out]

The semantic difference between the two is that ?? is an expression, while if is a statement. An expression says "perform a calculation and return a result", exactly the semantics you seek. More work has to be done to allow an if statement to express the same semantics; beyond that, the if leaves room for more logic than the calculation, room you don't need.

You should use the ?? operator because it expresses exactly the desired intent.