IsNullOrEmptyOrWhiteSpace method missing

Question

I define a string and check it by string.IsNullOrEmptyOrWhiteSpace().

But I got this error:

'string' does not contain a definition for 'IsNullOrEmptyOrWhiteSpace' and no extension method 'IsNullOrEmptyOrWhiteSpace' accepting a first argument of type 'string' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) D:\project\project\Controllers\aController.cs 23 24 project

What is the reason?

Answer 1

String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace has been introduced in .NET 4. If you are not targeting .NET 4 you could easily write your own:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static bool IsNullOrWhiteSpace(string value)
    {
        if (value != null)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < value.Length; i++)
            {
                if (!char.IsWhiteSpace(value[i]))
                {
                    return false;
                }
            }
        }
        return true;
    }
}

which could be used like this:

bool isNullOrWhiteSpace = StringExtensions.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("foo bar");

or as an extension method if you prefer:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static bool IsNullOrWhiteSpace(this string value)
    {
        if (value != null)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < value.Length; i++)
            {
                if (!char.IsWhiteSpace(value[i]))
                {
                    return false;
                }
            }
        }
        return true;
    }
}

which allows you to use it directly:

bool isNullOrWhiteSpace = "foo bar".IsNullOrWhiteSpace();

For the extension method to work make sure that the namespace in which the StringExtensions static class has been defined is in scope.

Answer 2

Here's another alternative implementation, just for fun. It probably wouldn't perform as well as Darin's, but it's a nice example of LINQ:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static bool IsNullOrWhiteSpace(this string value)
    {
        return value == null || value.All(char.IsWhiteSpace);
    }
}