Mike-Ward.Net

Tiny Trick for ViewState Backed Properties

Phil Haack’s blog has an excellent article on using the null coalescing operator with value types. I ran into to this very issue just the other night and like Phil quickly gave up. To summarize the trick.

bool result = (bool)ViewState["WillSucceed"] ?? false;

won’t compile but just change the casting order to (note the extra parenthesis):

bool result = (bool)(ViewState["WillSucceed"] ?? false);

and your in. Excellent tip!