Question

I cant get this to work. The State field is empty on certain occassions, I am trying to get the result to return “–” if it is empty, or doesn’t exist.

var CusipFields = from c in xml.Descendants("LISTARRAY")
                                  orderby c.Element("ASKYIELD").Value descending
                                  select new BondData()
                                  {

                                      CUSIP = c.Element("CUSIP").Value,
                                      Description = (string)c.Element("ISSUER").Value,
                                      Maturity= c.Element("MATURITYDT").Value,
                                      AskYield = float.Parse(c.Element("ASKYIELD").Value),
                                      State = (string)c.Element("STATE").Value ?? "--"
                                  }
                                  ;

This just doesn’t want to work. The error I am getting is:

NullReferenceException was unhandled. {“Object reference not set to an instance of an object.”}

I KNOW that it does not exist. I thought that putting ?? "--" will return “–” if c.Element(“STATE”).Value is null.

I can resort to modifying the statement to:

var CusipFields = from c in xml.Descendants("LISTARRAY")
                                  orderby c.Element("ASKYIELD").Value descending
                                  select c;
foreach(var t in CusipFields)
{
   switch(t.name)
    {
    }
}

But I think that it is slower. And its not what I want.

Answer 1

Use this:

State = (string)c.Element("STATE") ?? "--"

instead of

 State = (string)c.Element("STATE").Value ?? "--"

My answer assumes, that your problem is, that the STATE element is missing, not empty. Please tell me, whether or not that fixed your problem.