In C#, what is the best way to compare strings with null and "" return true

Question

I have the following code (as i am trying to detect changes to a field)

 if (person.State != source.State)
 {
      //update my data . .
  }

the issue is I am having cases where person.State is NULL and source.State is "" and thus returning true.

If one is null and the other is an empty string, I want to treat them as equal and don't update my data. What is the cleanest way of doing that? Do i need to create my own Comparer object as this seems like a generic problem

Answer 1

You'd think there would be a StringComparison enum value to handle this with String.Equals... or a CompareOptions enum value to handle it with String.Compare... but there is not.

In any case, I think you should still be using String.Equals as a best practice.

string s1 = null;
string s2 = string.Empty;

bool areEqual = string.Equals(s1 ?? string.Empty, s2 ?? string.Empty);

// areEqual is now true.

And like this you can add case or culture string compare options easily...

bool areEqual = string.Equals(s1 ?? string.Empty, s2 ?? string.Empty, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase);