Question

[Winforms .NET 4.0]

I want to be able to call a method and either return a bool or an object. Or anythign that can satisfy my example.

Example:

Method query the database. If the returned row is null i want the calling method to know this in order to call another check method. If the query returns a row with data i should return the data object.

One way i thought is to use the out keyword. Make the method return bool and initialize the returning object prior to calling the method.

After the method runs i could check if true and then manipuate the object…

Is this a good way?

Answer 1

Method query the database. If the returned row is null i want the calling method to know this in order to call another check method.

Why not just return a null reference then? Would you ever want null to mean anything else? (For example, would you ever want to represent that a null value has been found, with a different meaning to the value not being found in the first place?)