How To Show A Null Value From Database In TextBox In VB.NET

Question

I want to bring records stored in my SQL server DB to my form in VB.NET, I did below coding and it works fine but is there any other better way to handle NULL value from DB column that is going to be displayed in the textbox?

If DBNull.Value.Equals(dt.Rows(0).Item("fine_amt")) Then
                txtFine_amt.Text = ""
            Else
                txtFine_amt.Text = dt.Rows(0).Item("fine_amt")
            End If

If we don't handle Null value then it is going to throw an error: Conversion from type 'DBNull' to type 'String' is not valid

Answer 1

If I'm reading your question right, it sounds like you could just do this:

txtFine_amt.Text = dt.Rows(0).Item("fine_amt").ToString()

For null values, ToString() will always just return an empty string.

Answer 2

Not sure if it's really "better" but you could extract the value to a variable and use a conditional operator:

Dim value As Object = dt.Rows(0).Item("fine_amt")
txtFine_amt.Text = If(DBNull.Value.Equals(value), "", value)