c# - What is the most efficient way to check an ExecuteScalar result for existence?

Question

I'm seeing this code:

object objvalid = cmd.ExecuteScalar();
//made it this far - must not have thrown an exception
retVal = true;

...but am thinking one of these might be better:

object objvalid = cmd.ExecuteScalar();
retVal = (null != objvalid);

...

Int32 anybodyThere = (Int32) cmd.ExecuteScalar();
retVal = anybodyThere > 0;

Answer 1

I think you answered your own question. You can't get much better than this

object objvalid = cmd.ExecuteScalar();
retVal = (null != objvalid);

However, from your comment, it seems like what you really want is to know if a column name exists on a table. For this purpose I suggest you look into using DbDataAdapter.FillSchema or DbConnection.GetSchema instead. Both options allow you to execute a single query against the database for all columns rather than re-querying the database for every column.