Unable to cast object of type 'System.DBNull' to type 'System.String`

Solution 1:

With a simple generic function you can make this very easy. Just do this:

return ConvertFromDBVal<string>(accountNumber);

using the function:

public static T ConvertFromDBVal<T>(object obj)
{
    if (obj == null || obj == DBNull.Value)
    {
        return default(T); // returns the default value for the type
    }
    else
    {
        return (T)obj;
    }
}

Solution 2:

A shorter form can be used:

return (accountNumber == DBNull.Value) ? string.Empty : accountNumber.ToString()

EDIT: Haven't paid attention to ExecuteScalar. It does really return null if the field is absent in the return result. So use instead:

return (accountNumber == null) ? string.Empty : accountNumber.ToString()