I'm getting some unexpected behavior in my process. I'm doing the following.
IEnumerable<Thing> things = ...;
IEnumerable<Thing> subset = things.Where(a => a.SomeFlag);
String info = "null: " + (subset == null);
The above works and info tells me that the object isn't null. So I wish to check the number of the elements in subset by this.
IEnumerable<Thing> things = ...;
IEnumerable<Thing> subset = things.Where(a => a.SomeFlag);
String info = "null: " + (subset == null);
String count = subset.Count();
Now I get an exception giving me the error message:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
What do I miss?!
It's possible that one of the Thing's in subset is null. You can try this:
IEnumerable<Thing> subset = things.Where(a => a != null && a.SomeFlag);
Note that due to the way Linq's lazy evaluation, you won't get any exception you call .Where because all it's doing at that point is setting up a condition for filtering the elements of things. Only later when you call .Count is it actually evaluating the results.
Update: With the new null-condition operator in C# 6 (also called the safe navigation or 'Elvis' operator), we can do the same thing a bit more succinctly:
IEnumerable<Thing> subset = things.Where(a => a?.SomeFlag);
An IEnumerable<Thing> implies deferred execution.
In your first fragment subset and things are never enumerated.
In the second fragment, it is the call to Count() that enumerates the lists and only then it comes to light that one of the a is null in a => a.SomeFlag.
You can see what really happens here with a bit simplified example.
Test class:
public class Test
{
public int Value { get; set; }
}
And LINQ query on IEnumerable<Test>:
IEnumerable<Test> source = new List<Test>() {
new Test { Value = 10 },
null,
new Test { Value = 20 }
};
IEnumerable<Test> filteredSource = source.Where(x => x.Value > 10);
// return false
Console.WriteLine(filteredSource == null);
// throws NullReferenceException
Console.WriteLine(filteredSource.Count());
Why does it happens? Because filteredSource == null does not cause collection enumeration, so Where predicate is not being fired on any source collection element.
However, when you call Count() on filteredSource the predicate is being called on every item from source collection, and when it comes to an item which is null: null.Value > 10 throws the exception.
How to make it work? Extend the predicate with x != null check:
IEnumerable<Test> filteredSource = source.Where(x => x != null && x.Value > 10);
Ok, so suppose you had the following items in things:
Thing A SomeFlag = true
Thing B SomeFlag = false
null
Thing C SomeFlag = true
First you count all the items in things. So you iterate over 4 objects, find 4 objects, and know that the result is 4. Easy.
Now you want to count all of the items in subset which means you need to figure out which items are in subset in the first place. So you go about counting them:
Thing A .... A.SomeFlag is true, so count it
Thing B .... B.SomeFlag is not true, so don't count it
null .... null.SomeFlag NULLREFERENCEEXCEPTION
And that's where your error comes from.
Note that even if all of the elements in things are not null, you can still get a NullReferenceException if the .SomeFlag get accessor has a side effect that could cause a NullReferenceException.
Related
I am stuck with null values in my Datatable "articles". Using LINQ to get a list of articles works for column ArticleId but with column "ArticleVariations" the null values are killing me.
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable().Where(r =>r.Field<String>("ArticleId").Equals(artNo)); // works. no nulls there ;)
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable().Where(r =>r.Field<String>("ArticleVariations").Equals(artNo)); // stuck with nulls here
If the column contains nulls, I get an NullReferenceException, Can I avoid this somehow and is it possible to merge both expressions?
You can use null-conditional and null-coalescing operators:
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable()
.Where(r =>r.Field<String>("ArticleVariations")?.Equals(artNo) ?? false);
The problem obviously occurs because r.Field<String>("ArticleVariations") retuns null. Thus you have to check for null before calling Equals on it.
For that you can call multiple statements within a LINQ-expression:
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable().Where(r => {
var res = r.Field<String>("ArticleVariations");
if (res != null) return res.Equals(artNo);
else return false;
});
If the field can be null then just reverse your test:
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable().Where(r => artNo.Equals(r.Field<String>("ArticleVariations")));
Then all you need to do is check that artNo is not null before making the call:
List<Type> result;
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(artNo))
{
result = new List<Type>();
}
else
{
result = this.articles.... as before
}
Where just takes a function which returns a bool to determine if it should filter an item out of a collection. You can write it with a multi-statement body just like any other function to make nulls easier to deal with. Something like this should be a good starting point:
.Where(r => {
string articleVariations = r.Field<string>("ArticleVariations");
return articleVariations != null && articleVariations.Equals(artNo);
});
IF you want to combine those checks somehow to build a list where one or the other of the given fields matches your artNo, you can just add it to the function body.
If the column contains nulls, I get an NullReferenceException, Can I avoid this somehow
Avoid using instance Equals methods where possible. Use the respective operators or static Equals methods because they handle correctly nulls for you.
In your concrete case, the easiest way is to replace Equals with ==:
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable()
.Where(r => r.Field<string>("ArticleId") == artNo);
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable()
.Where(r => r.Field<string>("ArticleVariations") == artNo);
and is it possible to merge both expressions?
It depends on what do you mean by "merging" them. If you mean matching article or variation by the passed artNo, then you can use something like this
var result = this.articles.AsEnumerable()
.Where(r => r.Field<string>("ArticleId") == artNo
|| r => r.Field<string>("ArticleVariations") == artNo);
Here is some sample code I have basically written thousands of times in my life:
// find bestest thingy
Thing bestThing;
float bestGoodness = FLOAT_MIN;
foreach( Thing x in arrayOfThings )
{
float goodness = somefunction( x.property, localvariable );
if( goodness > bestGoodness )
{
bestGoodness = goodness;
bestThing = x;
}
}
return bestThing;
And it seems to me C# should already have something that does this in just a line. Something like:
return arrayOfThings.Max( delegate(x)
{ return somefunction( x.property, localvariable ); });
But that doesn't return the thing (or an index to the thing, which would be fine), that returns the goodness-of-fit value.
So maybe something like:
var sortedByGoodness = from x in arrayOfThings
orderby somefunction( x.property, localvariable ) ascending
select x;
return x.first;
But that's doing a whole sort of the entire array and could be too slow.
Does this exist?
This is what you can do using System.Linq:
var value = arrayOfThings
.OrderByDescending(x => somefunction(x.property, localvariable))
.First();
If the array can be empty, use .FirstOrDefault(); to avoid exceptions.
You really don't know how this is implemented internally, so you can't assure this will sort the whole array to get the first element. For example, if it was linq to sql, the server would receive a query including the sort and the condition. It wouldn't get the array, then sort it, then get the first element.
In fact, until you don't call First, the first part of the query isn't evaluated. I mean this isn't a two steps evaluation, but a one step evaluation.
var sortedValues =arrayOfThings
.OrderByDescending(x => somefunction(x.property, localvariable));
// values isn't still evaluated
var value = sortedvalues.First();
// the whole expression is evaluated at this point.
I don't think this is possible in standard LINQ without sorting the enuermable (which is slow in the general case), but you can use the MaxBy() method from the MoreLinq library to achieve this. I always include this library in my projects as it is so useful.
http://code.google.com/p/morelinq/source/browse/trunk/MoreLinq/MaxBy.cs
(The code actually looks very similar to what you have, but generalized.)
I would implement IComparable<Thing> and just use arrayOfThings.Max().
Example here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb347632.aspx
I think this is the cleanest approach and IComparable may be of use in other places.
UPDATE
There is also an overloaded Max method that takes a projection function, so you can provide different logic for obtaining height, age, etc.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb534962.aspx
I followed the link Porges listed in the comment, How to use LINQ to select object with minimum or maximum property value and ran the following code in LINQPad and verified that both LINQ expressions returned the correct answers.
void Main()
{
var things = new Thing [] {
new Thing { Value = 100 },
new Thing { Value = 22 },
new Thing { Value = 10 },
new Thing { Value = 303 },
new Thing { Value = 223}
};
var query1 = (from t in things
orderby GetGoodness(t) descending
select t).First();
var query2 = things.Aggregate((curMax, x) =>
(curMax == null || (GetGoodness(x) > GetGoodness(curMax)) ? x : curMax));
}
int GetGoodness(Thing thing)
{
return thing.Value * 2;
}
public class Thing
{
public int Value {get; set;}
}
Result from LinqPad
var nextItem = ql.Fragments.Where(x => x.AddedToFinal.Equals(false));
x.AddedToFinal is bool and ql.Fragments is not null
this linq statement sporadically get this exception:
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance
of an object.
at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereListIterator1.MoveNext() at
System.Linq.Enumerable.Count[TSource](IEnumerable1 source)
There is a question already that should have answered this( linq where clause and count result in null exception) but this is impossible since the field is a not null Boolean, and this isn't a database object it is a list
Just added:
The code where I populate the list is multi-threaded. different fragments add items to the list after they have retrieved the items from the db:
.....
xe = XElement.Parse(result);
XmlFragment xf = new XmlFragment();
xf.Fragment = xe;
xf.LetterQueueOID = lq.LetterQueueOID;
xf.ParentGroupNodeName = ParentGroupNodeName;
xf.LinkingField = GroupNode.LinkingField;
xf.GroupNodeName = GroupNode.GroupNodeName;
lock (queuedLetters[lqOID])
{
if (lq.Fragments == null)
lq.Fragments = new List<XmlFragment>();
lq.Fragments.Add(xf);
}
ql.Fragments itself isn't null, but one of the elements in the enumeration is null. I'm guessing that is a problem in and of itself, but you could modify the statement to be:
var nextItem = ql.Fragments.Where(x => x != null &&
x.AddedToFinal.Equals(false));
Although that doesn't solve the problem of why one of the elements in the collection was null to begin with.
x.AddedToFinal is bool and ql.Fragments is not null this linq statement sporadically get this exception:
Then one of the elements of ql.Fragments is null so that
x.AddedToFinal
is throwing a NullReferenceException for some value of x in ql.Fragments. You could say
var nextItem = ql.Fragments
.Where(x => x != null)
.Where(x => !x.AddedToFinal);
but you should probably find out why there are null elements in your collection.
I would check if x is null
var nextItem = ql.Fragments.Where(x => x != null && x.AddedToFinal.Equals(false));
Are you sure all rows have a value for AddedToFinal ?!!
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereListIterator1.MoveNext() at System.Linq.Enumerable.Count[TSource](IEnumerable1 source)
As you can see in exception Iterator can't move or read next row.
Be sure all rows have a value for this field.
The code below works unless p.School.SchoolName turns out to be null, in which case it results in a NullReferenceException.
if (ExistingUsers.Where(p => p.StudentID == item.StaffID &&
p.School.SchoolName == item.SchoolID).Count() > 0)
{
// Do stuff.
}
ExistingUsers is a list of users:
public List<User> ExistingUsers;
Here is the relevant portion of the stacktrace:
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereListIterator1.MoveNext()
at System.Linq.Enumerable.Count[TSource](IEnumerable1 source)
How should I handle this where clause?
Thanks very much in advance.
I suspect p.School is null, not SchoolName. Simply add a null check before accessing SchoolName. Also, use Any() to check if there are any results instead of Count() > 0 unless you're really in need of the count. This performs better since not all items are iterated if any exist.
var result = ExistingUsers.Where(p => p.StudentID == item.StaffID
&& p.School != null
&& p.School.SchoolName == item.SchoolID)
.Any();
if (result) { /* do something */ }
For all database nullable columns, we should either add null check or do simple comparision a == b instead of a.ToLower() == b.ToLower() or similar string operations.
My observation as below:
As they get iterated through Enumerable of LINQ Query for comparision against with input string/value, any null value (of database column) and operations on it would raise exception, but Enumerable becomes NULL, though query is not null.
In the case where you want to get the null value (all the student, with school or not) Use left join.
There are a good example on MSDN
If I remember correctly (not at my developer PC at the moment and can't check with Reflector), using the == operator results in calling the instance implementation string.Equals(string), not the static implementation String.Equals(string, string).
Assuming that your problem is due to SchoolName being null, as you suggest, try this:
if (ExistingUsers.Where(
p => p.StudentID == item.StaffID
&& String.Equals( p.School.SchoolName, item.SchoolID)).Count() > 0)
{
// Do stuff.
}
Of course, comments by other answers count as well:
Using Any() instead of Count() > 0 will generally perform better
If p.School is the null, you'll need an extra check
Hope this helps.
How can I specify conditions in Where predicates in LINQ without getting null reference exceptions. For instance, if q is an IQueryable how can I do like:
Expression<Func<ProductEntity,bool>> predicate = p => !search.CategoryId.HasValue || (search.CategoryId.HasValue && search.CategoryId == p.CategoryId);
var q2 = q.Where(predicate);
Here search is an object that holds possible search conditions that may or may not be set like search.CategoryId might not be set but if it is I want to get the products that are set by that condition.
When I do this I get null reference exceptions.
You can use the null-coalescing operator ?? to replace a possible null value with a default value. The following sets tries to match the search.Category if it exists or simply creates an "always true" expression. This will be optimized by any good Linq query provider (e.g. LinqToSql).
Expression<Func<ProductEntity,bool>> predicate = p => (search.CategoryId ?? p.CategoryId) == p.CategoryId);
var q2 = q.Where(predicate);
Another possibility would be to dynamically compose a query predicate using PredicateBuilder. That's the way I do it for searches with a similar pattern as you use:
var predicate = PredicateBuilder.True<Order>();
if (search.OrderId))
{
predicate = predicate.And(a => SqlMethods.Like(a.OrderID, search.OderID);
}
// ...
var results = q.Where(predicate);
Let's dissect the line:
Expression<Func<ProductEntity,bool> predicate = p => !search.CategoryId.HasValue
|| (search.CategoryId.HasValue && search.CategoryId == p.CategoryId)
var q2 = q.Where(predicate);
So how many ways can we get null problems?
search (your "captured" variable) could be null
p could be null, meaning there is a null in the list
you've handled the case of search.CategoryId being null (Nullable<T>)
but maybe p.CategoryId (the category on a record in the list) is null (Nullable<T>) - however, I'm not sure that this would cause a NullReferenceException
q (the list / source) could be null
So: out of 5 options you've eliminated 1; look at the other 4? There is also the definite possibility that the issue is caused by something invisible not shown in the code; for example the get could be:
public int? CategoryId {
get {return innerObject.CategoryId;}
}
and innerObject could be null; if you eliminate the other 4 (pretty easy to do), look at at this one as a last resort.