Question

If I have a query that returns a DateTime, what’s the value of FirstOrDefault()? Is there a generic way to get the default value of a C# scalar? Example:

var list = (from item in db.Items 
    where item.ID==1234
    select item.StartDate).FirstOrDefault();

Edit: Assume that the column StartDate can’t be null.

Answer 1

The generic way to get a default value for a given generic type is:

default(T)

where T is the generic type parameter in question. For reference types, this will yield null. For value types, this will yield a zero’d instance of the value. For DateTimes, this will be equivalent to DateTime.MinValue.