What is the best way to check if a string is empty in C# in VS2005?
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                    3Fantastic. 5 nearly identical answers within minutes of the posting of what is arguably the simplest C# question in SO history. Covered in meta; http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/114/noob-questions-simple-answers-and-big-rep-points – xcud Jun 29 '10 at 13:00
6 Answers
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            There's the builtin String.IsNullOrEmpty which I'd use. It's described here.
 
    
    
        Hans Olsson
        
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                    1+1 for `String` instead of `string`. Similarly to `Int32.TryParse` instead of `int.TryParse` – abatishchev Jun 29 '10 at 09:09
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                    4@abatishchev: Note that there is no semantical difference between those two. Jon Skeet explained quite well when it makes sense to use each of the variants: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/215255/string-vs-string-in-c/215422#215422. In fact, the C# spec states: "As a matter of style, use of the keyword is favored over use of the complete system type name." – Dirk Vollmar Jun 29 '10 at 09:13
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                    @0xA3: Undoubtedly. For me, first of all, this is just style of code – abatishchev Jun 29 '10 at 09:33
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        As suggested above you can use String.IsNullOrEmpty, but that will not work if you also want to check for strings with only spaces (some users place a space when a field is required). In that case you can use:
if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(str) || str.Trim().Length == 0) {
  // String was empty or whitespaced
}
 
    
    
        Gertjan
        
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        C# 4 has the String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace() method which will handle cases where your string is made up of whitespace ony.
 
    
    
        ZombieSheep
        
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                    1... which doesn't matter since it was asked for VS2005, i.e. .NET 2.0. Would have been a great comment though. – OregonGhost Jun 29 '10 at 09:25
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        The string.IsNullOrEmpty() method on the string class itself.
You could use
string.Length == 0
but that will except if the string is null.
 
    
    
        abatishchev
        
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        Dr Herbie
        
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        ofc
bool isStringEmpty = string.IsNullOrEmpty("yourString");
 
    
    
        abatishchev
        
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        Serkan Hekimoglu
        
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