Practical scenarios – handling nulls effectively

As you must have already seen, dealing with nulls isn’t just a theoretical concern; it’s a daily challenge. By examining real-world scenarios, we can better appreciate the need for clear strategies in managing nulls and ensuring robust, reliable applications.

Case study – managing YouTube videos

Scenario: A system retrieves video details from a database. Not every video ID queried will have a corresponding video entry.

Traditional approach:

public Video GetVideoDetails(int videoId)
{
    var video = database.FindVideoById(videoId);
    if (video == null)
    {
        throw new VideoNotFoundException($"Video with ID {videoId} not found.");
    }
    return video;
}

Option approach:

public Option<Video> GetVideoDetails(int videoId)
{
 ...