Verifying Column Existence in SqlDataReader Objects

In data access layers, it's often necessary to create methods that process data returned from stored procedures that may have varying column structures. For scenarios where one stored procedure returns an additional column compared to others, a need arises to modify the method to handle both scenarios. This article explores how to check for the existence of a specific column in a SqlDataReader object.

Solution:

The suggested solution involves creating an extension method for the IDataRecord interface named HasColumn. This method takes a column name as a parameter and iterates through all columns in the record, comparing each column name to the provided one. If a match is found, it returns true, indicating the presence of the column; otherwise, it returns false.

Here's the code for the HasColumn extension method:

public static class DataRecordExtensions
{
    public static bool HasColumn(this IDataRecord dr, string columnName)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i 
Usage:
To determine whether a SqlDataReader object contains a specific column, simply call the HasColumn method on the object and pass in the column name you're interested in. The method will return true if the column exists, and false otherwise. This allows you to handle varying column structures in stored procedures in a robust manner.