Assign null to a SqlParameter

You need pass DBNull.Value as a null parameter within SQLCommand, unless a default value is specified within stored procedure (if you are using stored procedure). The best approach is to assign DBNull.Value for any missing parameter before query execution, and following foreach will do the job.

foreach (SqlParameter parameter in sqlCmd.Parameters)
{
    if (parameter.Value == null)
    {
        parameter.Value = DBNull.Value;
    }
}

Otherwise change this line:

planIndexParameter.Value = (AgeItem.AgeIndex== null) ? DBNull.Value : AgeItem.AgeIndex;

As follows:

if (AgeItem.AgeIndex== null)
    planIndexParameter.Value = DBNull.Value;
else
    planIndexParameter.Value = AgeItem.AgeIndex;

Because you can't use different type of values in conditional statement, as DBNull and int are different from each other. Hope this will help.


The accepted answer suggests making use of a cast. However, most of the SQL types have a special Null field which can be used to avoid this cast.

For example, SqlInt32.Null "Represents a DBNull that can be assigned to this instance of the SqlInt32 class."

int? example = null;
object exampleCast = (object) example ?? DBNull.Value;
object exampleNoCast = example ?? SqlInt32.Null;

The problem is that the ?: operator cannot determine the return type because you are either returning an int value or a DBNull type value, which are not compatible.

You can of course cast the instance of AgeIndex to be type object which would satisfy the ?: requirement.

You can use the ?? null-coalescing operator as follows

SqlParameter[] parameters = new SqlParameter[1];     
SqlParameter planIndexParameter = new SqlParameter("@AgeIndex", SqlDbType.Int);
planIndexParameter.Value = (object)AgeItem.AgeIndex ?? DBNull.Value;
parameters[0] = planIndexParameter; 

Here is a quote from the MSDN documentation for the ?: operator that explains the problem

Either the type of first_expression and second_expression must be the same, or an implicit conversion must exist from one type to the other.


With one line of code, try this:

var piParameter = new SqlParameter("@AgeIndex", AgeItem.AgeIndex ?? (object)DBNull.Value);