Question

For some context, the record class SaleAmount property is

public decimal? SaleAmount
{
    get;
    set;
}

Ideally I would go with this

record.SaleAmount.Value = 
sql.Reader.IsDBNull(IDX_SALEAMOUNT) ? null : 
    sql.Reader.GetDecimal(IDX_SALEAMOUNT);

Alas the compiler and this are not friends because…

Type of conditional expression cannot be determined because there is no implicit conversion between ” and ‘decimal’

So how would you express this elegantly, and dont play the obvious card like below…

if (!sql.Reader.IsDBNull(IDX_SALEAMOUNT))
    record.SaleAmount = sql.Reader.GetDecimal(IDX_SALEAMOUNT);

Or is above the best solution?

Answer 1

If you’re using C# 3, I’d actually make this easier for yourself using an extension method:

public static decimal? GetNullableDecimal(this DbReader reader, 
    int column)
{
    return reader.IsDBNull(column) ? (decimal?) null : 
        reader.GetDecimal(column);
}

Then your application code can just use:

record.SaleAmount = sql.Reader.GetNullableDecimal(IDX_SALEAMOUNT);