What's the best way to detect if an IDataReader is empty?

Question

It seems like IDataReader.Read() is always true at least one time (If I'm wrong about this let me know.) So how do you tell if it has no records without just wrapping it in a try/catch?

Answer 1

if(dr.Read())
{
   //do stuff
}
else
{
 //it's empty
}

usually you'll do this though:

while(dr.Read())
{
}

Answer 2

Yes, if you want to use the interface then Read until false is the only way to test. If you are looking for a generic IDataReader implementation, you could try DbDataReader and use the HasRows property.