Question

I have an int property in my viewmodel that returns a custom class property. I check if the class reference is null, and in that case I want to return some empty value to the view in order to NOT show any value.

The code is like this:

public int percentage
{
get {
   if (customClass != null)
   {
      return customClass.getInt();
   }
   else
   {
      return 0;
   }
...
}

Answer 1

If you want to return a “no value” result, you should return null. Since that’s not a valid value for an int, you have to change the type of the property to be int? instead:

public int? Percentage
{
    get { return customClass == null ? null : customClass.getInt(); }
}

If you have not seen the syntax before, int? is shorthand for System.Nullable<int>.

Don’t forget that you can also transform the value of Percentage to anything you like really from inside the view by defining an appropriate Converter for the binding.