Question

Almost daily I come across code of the following form:

string x = "foo" + (someTest ? "bar" : "");

Surely there must be a nicer way to succinctly append a string only if some value is true?

This:

string x = "foo";
if (someTest)
    x += "bar";

does not satisfy my appetite, because I often want to use the string directly (e.g. as a function argument), without storing it in a variable.

Answer 1

What about an Extension Method?

string x = "foo".AppendIf(someTest, "bar");


public static string AppendIf(this string value, bool expression, string append)
{
    return expression
       ? value + append;
       : value;
}