How do I find out if a column exists in a VB.Net DataRow

Question

I am reading an XML file into a DataSet and need to get the data out of the DataSet. Since it is a user-editable config file the fields may or may not be there. To handle missin

Answer 1

Another way to find out if a column exists is to check for Nothing the value returned from the Columns collection indexer when passing the column name to it:

If dataRow.Table.Columns("ColumnName") IsNot Nothing Then
    MsgBox("YAY")
End If

This approach might be preferred over the one that uses the Contains("ColumnName") method when the following code will subsequently need to get that DataColumn for further usage. For example, you may want to know which type has a value stored in the column:

Dim column = DataRow.Table.Columns("ColumnName")
If column IsNot Nothing Then
    Dim type = column.DataType
End If

In this case this approach saves you a call to the Contains("ColumnName") at the same time making your code a bit cleaner.