Initializing object to handle null query results

Question

I have an object model like this:

public class MyObject{
  public int Prop1{get;set;}
  public int Prop2{get;set;}
}

I use this object in a linq to sql query like this:

var MyQuery = from....
              where....
              select new MyObject()
                {
                  Prop1 = ...
                  Prop2 = ...
                };

The problem is that sometimes Prop1 turns out empty in the query and I get an error because Prop1 is null.

I'm adding this to the class:

public class MyObject{
...
public void Init()
{
  this.Prop1 = 0;
  this.Prop2 = 0;
}

How do I link Init to the event "object just got created"?

And, is solving the problem of a null by initializing the object to 0 the best way to do it anyway?

Thanks for your suggestions.

edit: I'm using Prop1 in the UI and I can't display null, must be 0.

Answer 1

You could do this way:

select new MyObject()
            {
              Prop1 = prop1 ?? 0;
              Prop2 = prop2 ?? 0;
            };

But it is better to use nullables.