Question

I want to use NULLs in my select statement like so:

select NULL,
       name,
       NULL
from   names

How do I code this in LINQ?

Answer 1

Building on Candie’s answer, if you use an anonymous type, you’d need to specify the null property values:

class Name
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var names = new List<Name>() { new Name() { FirstName = "Albert"}, 
                                        new Name() { FirstName = "Bob"}};

        var values = from n in names
                     select new
                     {
                         FirstVal = null as object,
                         SecondVal = n.FirstName,
                         ThirdVal = null as object
                     };
   }
}

You can’t assign null to an anonymous type’s property, so you have to cast it to object.