Is there a neat and clean way to handle nulls with Yields? - vb.net

Question

While CommitReader.Read()
Yield New Commit() With {
.FirstValue = CommitReader.GetInt32(CommitReader.GetOrdinal("FirstValue")),
.SecondValue = CommitReader.GetString(CommitReader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")).Trim(),
'Lots of values
End While
I know I can do something like this; however there are 24 properties and I would like to make this part as clean as possible
While CommitReader.Read()
new Commit (){
Dim index As Integer = reader.GetOrdinal("FirstValue")
If reader.IsDBNull(index) Then
FirstValue = String.Empty
Else
FirstValue = reader(index)
End If
index = reader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")
If reader.IsDBNull(index) Then
SecondValue = String.Empty
Else
SecondValue = reader(index)
End If
}
End While
Is there a better way to handle this type of thing? I am mainly a C# developer so if the syntax is off a little sorry, I am winging it in VB.

Answer 1

It's a shame that SqlDataReader doesn't have the generic Field extension method like DataRow does, but you could define your own extension method (has to be in a module in VB.NET) to help with the null checks, perhaps something like this:
<Extension>
Function GetValue(Of T)(rdr As SqlDataReader, i As Integer) As T
If rdr.IsDBNull(i) Then
Return Nothing
End If
Return DirectCast(rdr.GetValue(i), T)
End Function
And use it something like this:
While CommitReader.Read()
Yield New Commit() With {
.FirstValue = CommitReader.GetValue(Of Integer?)(CommitReader.GetOrdinal("FirstValue")),
.SecondValue = CommitReader.GetValue(Of String)(CommitReader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")),
'Lots of values
End While
I haven't tested this fully to make sure it handles all data types appropriately (may be worth looking at DataRowExtensions.Field to see how it does it).
Note that you are using String.Empty as the "null" value for strings, while this will use Nothing/null (I also had to remove the .Trim call to avoid NREs). If you want empty string instead, you could use (adding the Trim back in):
.SecondValue = If(CommitReader.GetValue(Of String)(CommitReader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")), String.Empty).Trim()
You may also want to move the GetOrdinal calls out of the loop to improve performance.

Answer 2

Obviously you have repetition in your code if ... else ... condition.
So you can extract it in another method.
For your case generic extension method seems good candidate.
Public Module Extensions
<Extension>
Public Function GetValueOrDefault(Of T)(originalValue As object,
defaultValue As T) As T
If originalValue = DbNull.Value Then
Return defaultValue
End If
return DirectCast(originalValue, T)
End Function
End Module
Then use it:
While CommitReader.Read() = True
Dim temp = new Commit With
{
Dim index As Integer = reader.GetOrdinal("FirstValue")
FirstValue = reader(index).GetValueOrDefault(String.Empty)
Dim index As Integer = reader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")
FirstValue = reader(index).GetValueOrDefault(String.Empty)
}
End While
You can create another overload which return "default" value for given type if it is DbNull
<Extension>
Public Function GetValueOrDefault(Of T)(originalValue As object) As T
Return originalValue.GetValueOrDefault(Nothing)
End Function
Nothing in vb.net is default value, for reference types it is null for Integer it is 0 for example.
For using this overload you need provide type parameter explicitly
While CommitReader.Read() = True
Dim temp = new Commit With
{
Dim index As Integer = reader.GetOrdinal("FirstValue")
FirstValue = reader(index).GetValueOrDefault(Of String)()
Dim index As Integer = reader.GetOrdinal("SecondValue")
FirstValue = reader(index).GetValueOrDefault(Of String)()
}
End While
Notice that your solution executing reader twice, for checking is it null and for reading value. This can cause "tiny" performance issue.
So in extension method above we read value only once and then check value for DbNull.

Answer 3

If you concatenate a string with a Null you get the string:
FirstValue = reader(index) & ""
Kind of "unprofessional" but saves a lot of coding time if all you are doing is converting a possible Null to an empty string. Easy to forget however, so later data dependent errors may pop up.