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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-05T09:02:47+00:00

var users=db.Users.Where(u => u.Name.StartsWith(term) || u.Email.StartsWith(term) || u.FirstName.StartsWith(term)).ToArray(); var jsos=users.Select(u => new { label

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 var users=db.Users.Where(u => u.Name.StartsWith(term) || u.Email.StartsWith(term) || u.FirstName.StartsWith(term)).ToArray();
 var jsos=users.Select(u => new { label = u.FirstName  +" "+  u.Name+ " (" + u.Email+")", value = u.Id });

Works as expected. But, without the ToArray(), I get what appears to be strange behaviour: a null firstName results in the label being evaluated as null. With ToArray() I get the expected behaviour. (null is treated as an empty string and concatenated to the other non empty strings). Why?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    In the SQL world, by definition, any expression that has NULL as part of it becomes NULL. This is because NULL means an indeterminate value – an indeterminate value + anything else is still an indeterminate value, i.e. NULL.

    Again, in SQL you could use something like COALESCE to convert NULLs into, say, a blank string – I don’t recall off hand what the linq equivalent is.

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