Assigning default values if NULL

Question

I have an MVC app where a user can select company benfits, there are 10 different benefits and they can have none up to all 10 of these. In my view I have the ten listed with radio buttons to indicate whether they are required or not. There is also a calculation performed in the controller that adds all the values together to give a total.

As an example in my controller -

newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceRequired = viewModel.LifeAssuranceRequired;    
newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceSchemeName = viewModel.LifeAssuranceSchemeName;
newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceProviderName = viewModel.LifeAssuranceProviderName;
newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceBenefitLevel = viewModel.LifeAssuranceBenefitLevel;
newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceEmployerCost = viewModel.LifeAssuranceEmployerCost;
newuser.LifeAssurance.LifeAssuranceEmployeeCost = viewModel.LifeAssuranceEmployeeCost;

Since the user may decide not to choose this benefit is it possible to assign the cost as 0 if they have not made a selection in the view model? Can I check if it's null and add 0 in that case?

Yoav · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-22 12:13:42Z

5

You can use the ?? operator (see here)
use it like this:

string someString = null;
string someOtherString = someString ?? "0";

if someString(or any other object) is not null use it, else use whatever is on the right of the ?? operator.

answered Oct 22, 2012 at 12:13

Yoav

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Mateusz Rogulski · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-22 11:19:18Z

2

Maybe set your values as nullable by add ? to type, and then you can check it is null by:

var someValue = (nullableValue.HasValue) ? nullableValue.Value : 0;

answered Oct 22, 2012 at 11:19

Mateusz Rogulski

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