I regularly review the code that I maintain. Recently, I’ve come across code like this fairly often:
someCollection.FirstOrDefault().IdI cannot rightly comprehend why anyone would do this.
FirstOrDefault() returns the first item in a sequence or the default value if it doesn’t exist (i.e. the sequence is empty). For a reference type (classes, basically) the default value is null. So using the value returned by FirstOrDefault() without a null check is only valid for when the sequence contains a value type (e.g. int, decimal, DateTime, Guid, etc.)
In the example above if someCollection is an empty list/array/collection/whatever then FirstOrDefault() will return null and the call to the Id property will fail.
Then you are left with a NullReferenceException on line xxx but you don’t know if it is someCollection, or the returned value from FirstOrDefault() which then wastes your time (or the time of someone else who is having to debug it).
So, if the sequence must always contain items then use First(), in the exceptional event that it is empty the call to First() will throw a more appropriate exception that will help you debug faster. If it is perfectly valid for the sequence to be empty then perform a null check and change the behaviour appropriately.
