In the following MSDN Official article on LINQ Outer Join, author(s) are using ? and ?? together in ...select new { person.FirstName, PetName = subpet?.Name ?? String.Empty };. Question: Why not just use ?? as: select new { person.FirstName, PetName = subpet.Name ?? String.Empty }; that, I think, translates to if subpet.Name is null give me empty string. Am I misunderstanding something?
Reason for the Inquiry: When I was using ? and ?? together in my code (explained here) the VS2015 Intellisense was giving me the error also explained in that post.
class Person
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
class Pet
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public Person Owner { get; set; }
}
public static void LeftOuterJoinExample()
{
Person magnus = new Person { FirstName = "Magnus", LastName = "Hedlund" };
Person terry = new Person { FirstName = "Terry", LastName = "Adams" };
Person charlotte = new Person { FirstName = "Charlotte", LastName = "Weiss" };
Person arlene = new Person { FirstName = "Arlene", LastName = "Huff" };
Pet barley = new Pet { Name = "Barley", Owner = terry };
Pet boots = new Pet { Name = "Boots", Owner = terry };
Pet whiskers = new Pet { Name = "Whiskers", Owner = charlotte };
Pet bluemoon = new Pet { Name = "Blue Moon", Owner = terry };
Pet daisy = new Pet { Name = "Daisy", Owner = magnus };
// Create two lists.
List<Person> people = new List<Person> { magnus, terry, charlotte, arlene };
List<Pet> pets = new List<Pet> { barley, boots, whiskers, bluemoon, daisy };
var query = from person in people
join pet in pets on person equals pet.Owner into gj
from subpet in gj.DefaultIfEmpty()
select new { person.FirstName, PetName = subpet?.Name ?? String.Empty };
foreach (var v in query)
{
Console.WriteLine($"{v.FirstName+":",-15}{v.PetName}");
}
}
// This code produces the following output:
//
// Magnus: Daisy
// Terry: Barley
// Terry: Boots
// Terry: Blue Moon
// Charlotte: Whiskers
// Arlene:
