How to handle nulls in LINQ when using Min or Max?

A short summary of the calculation of a Min

– No mediation (Exception!)

   var min = result.Partials.Where(o => o.IsPositive).Min(o => o.Result);

This is your case: if there are no matching elements, then the Min call will raise an exception (InvalidOperationException).

– With DefaultIfEmpty() — still troublesome

 var min = result.Partials.Where(o => o.IsPositive)
                          .Select(o => o.Result)
                          .DefaultIfEmpty()
                          .Min();

DefaultIfEmpty will create an enumeration over the 0 element, when there are no elements in the list. How do you know that 0 is the Min or if 0 stands for a list with no elements?

– Nullable values; A better solution

   var min = result.Partials.Where(o => o.IsPositive)
                            .Min(o => (decimal?)o.Result);

Here Min is either null (because that’s equal to default(decimal?)) or the actual Min found.

So a consumer of this result will know that:

1. When result is null then the list had no elements
2. When the result is a decimal value then the list had some elements and the Min of those elements is that returned value.

However, when this doesn’t matter, then min.GetValueOrDefault(0) can be called.