C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5 are out and ready for consumption, and I have been using some of the new features. One of the new features, Extension Methods, is really cool and can help you consolidate and reuse your code in a logical manner. Take for example, System.Data.DataSet – there is always something I do when getting a DataSet back. Check if it isnull and check if the table in the [0] index has more than zero rows.
Now, you end up having all these if statements to check this every time you get a DataSet back. Something like this:
DataSet myDataset;
myDataset= _database.ExecuteDataSet(dbCommand);
if(myDataset != null && myDataset.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 0)
{
…
}
Now, in previous versions of .NET, you could make a method in a Core library you have, or whatever and pass in the dataset and pass back a bool if that dataset met that condition. What you can do now is this:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
namespace SteveNovoselac.MyCoreLib.Common.Extensions
{
public static class DataExtensions
{
public static bool IsEmpty(this DataSet d)
{
if (d != null && d.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 0)
{
return false;
}
else
{
return true;
}
}
}
}
You can see, I created a class called DataExtensions. I have a method "IsEmpty()" that takes "this DataSet d" (this makes it an extension method for DataSet)
Now, in my code I can do this:
if(myDataset.IsEmpty())
{
…
}
Awesome! Next time I will go over Automatic Properties and the pros/cons in them.
