LINQ to Entities does not recognize the method 'System.DateTime GetValueOrDefault()'

Question

Struggling with very simple code that isn't working where similar code is working in other classes. It won't compile if I remove GetValueOrDefault(). Also I am using System.Linq. I'm getting this runtime error: LINQ to Entities does not recognize the method 'System.DateTime GetValueOrDefault()'. Any ideas?

    public List<AddressModel> GetAll(string customer_number)
    {           
        addresses = (from a in db.ADDRESS
                      where a.CUSTOMER_NUMBER.Equals(customer_number)
                      select new AddressModel
                       {
                           Address_Id = a.ADDRESS_ID,
                           System_Id = a.SYSTEM_ID,
                           Customer_Number = a.CUSTOMER_NUMBER,
                           Address_Type = a.ADDRESS_TYPE,
                           Changed_On = a.CHANGED_ON.GetValueOrDefault(DateTime.MinValue),
                           Created_On = a.CREATED_ON.GetValueOrDefault(DateTime.MinValue),
                           Email = a.EMAIL
                       }).ToList(); 

        return addresses;
    }

---

Why would Entity Framework not be able to use ToString() in a LINQ statement? discusses similar problem of Linq-to-Entites not able to translate .ToString() method, but approaches suggested there - not using method at all or getting Microsoft to fix it did not work for this case.

Answer 1

You should be able to use the Null Coalescing operator ??:

addresses = (from a in db.ADDRESS
             where a.CUSTOMER_NUMBER.Equals(customer_number)
             select new AddressModel
             {
                 Address_Id = a.ADDRESS_ID,
                 System_Id = a.SYSTEM_ID,
                 Customer_Number = a.CUSTOMER_NUMBER,
                 Address_Type = a.ADDRESS_TYPE,
                 Changed_On = a.CHANGED_ON ?? DateTime.MinValue,
                 Created_On = a.CREATED_ON ?? DateTime.MinValue,
                 Email = a.EMAIL
              }).ToList();