Null Coalessing not returning correct value

Question

It is my understanding that the below line should return an empty string "" in the case the Datagrid cell was empty.

string proxyuser = this.dataGridView2.SelectedRows[0].Cells[3].Value.ToString() ?? "";

For some reason, I"m still receiving a null reference error on the init line.

Answer 1

There's likely a chance one of the other parts are null, I recommend trying out null propagation. (where a ?. will check if the current left part is null first before continueing past the dot, otherwise, it'll return a null, and then giving back the empty string)

For example:

string proxyuser = this.dataGridView2.SelectedRows[0]?.Cells[3]?.Value?.ToString() ?? "";