title: object string Coalesce
body: <p>Good day,</p>
  
  <p>Im trying to use coalesce with SPListItem. What i want to accomplish is simple. Check if the object has a value, if true take the SPListItem String and put it into a variable, if false put string.Empty into the variable. </p>
  
  <p>Seems though that Coalesce cannot do that. Can i create an extention method that will accept the SPListItem and do this?
  So far i have this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>private static string Coalesce(Object historyListItem)
  {
      try
      {
          return historyListItem.ToString();
      }
      catch (Exception ex)
      {
          return string.Empty;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I do not think this is the right way to do this. Any ideas on how i can modify is to comply with "Microsoft best practice"?</p>