Question

If I have a class like below, how would I create the function nullToEmptyString()?
If object is DBNull.Value then return an empty string, otherwise return the value. The function should work on every object in person.

public class Person
{
    public object surname { get; set; }
    public object lastname { get; set; }
    public object zip_code { get; set; }
    public object tele { get; set; }
}  

I retrieve a list of persons from the DB and I want to print the value, if it has a value, otherwise an empty string.

foreach (var person in listFromDB)
{
    person.surname.nullToEmptyString()
    person.lastname.nullToEmptyString()
}  

EDIT
In short, this function should work like the .ToString() function but would also be able to handle DBNull values.

Answer 1

public static string nullToEmptyString(this string dbStr)
{
    return (dbStr == null || dbStr == "") ? "" : dbStr;
}

foreach (var person in listFromDB)
{
    Response.Write(person.surname.nullToEmptyString());
    Response.Write(person.lastname.nullToEmptyString());
}

Hope this helps.