string.IsNullOrEmpty(string) vs. string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(string)

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Is use of string.IsNullOrEmpty(string) when checking a string considered as bad practice when there is string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(string) in .NET 4.0 and above?

10 Answers

Be careful of escaped characters:

String.IsNullOrEmpty(""); //True
String.IsNullOrEmpty(null); //True
String.IsNullOrEmpty("   "); //False
String.IsNullOrEmpty("\n"); //False
String.IsNullOrEmpty("\t"); //False
String.IsNullOrEmpty("hello"); //False

and here:

String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("");//True
String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(null);//True
String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("   ");//True
String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("\n");//True
String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("\t");//True
String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("hello");//False

If you apply Trim to the values passed to IsNullOrEmpty(), the results for the two methods will be the same.

As a matter of performance, IsNullOrWhiteSpace() would be faster.

In the .Net standard 2.0:

string.IsNullOrEmpty(): Indicates whether the specified string is null or an Empty string.

Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrEmpty(null));           // True
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrEmpty(""));             // True
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrEmpty(" "));            // False
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrEmpty("  "));           // False

string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(): Indicates whether a specified string is null, empty, or consists only of white-space characters.

Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(null));     // True
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(""));       // True
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(" "));      // True
Console.WriteLine(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace("  "));     // True

string.IsNullOrEmpty(str) - if you'd like to check string value has been provided

string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(str) - basically this is already a sort of business logic implementation (i.e. why " " is bad, but something like "~~" is good).

My advice - do not mix business logic with technical checks. So, for example, string.IsNullOrEmpty is the best to use at the beginning of methods to check their input parameters.

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