Structure Pet
    Public Name As String
    Public Age As Integer
End Structure

Shared Sub DefaultIfEmptyEx1()
    ' Create a list of Pet objects.
    Dim pets As New List(Of Pet)(New Pet() { _
                        New Pet With {.Name = "Barley", .Age = 8}, _
                        New Pet With {.Name = "Boots", .Age = 4}, _
                        New Pet With {.Name = "Whiskers", .Age = 1}})

    ' Call DefaultIfEmtpy() on the collection that Select()
    ' returns, so that if the initial list is empty, there
    ' will always be at least one item in the returned array.
    Dim names() As String = pets.AsQueryable() _
        .Select(Function(Pet) Pet.Name) _
        .DefaultIfEmpty() _
        .ToArray()

    Dim first As String = names(0)
    MsgBox(first)

    ' This code produces the following output:
    '
    ' Barley

End Sub

' Create a list of Pet objects.
Dim pets As New List(Of Pet)(New Pet() { _
                   New Pet With {.Name = "Barley", .Age = 8}, _
                   New Pet With {.Name = "Boots", .Age = 4}, _
                   New Pet With {.Name = "Whiskers", .Age = 1}})

' This query returns pets that are 10 or older. In case there are no pets 
' that meet that criteria, call DefaultIfEmpty(). This code passes an (optional) 
' default value to DefaultIfEmpty().
Dim oldPets() As String = pets.AsQueryable() _
    .Where(Function(Pet) Pet.Age >= 10) _
    .Select(Function(Pet) Pet.Name) _
    .DefaultIfEmpty("[EMPTY]") _
    .ToArray()
Try
    MsgBox("First query: " + oldPets(0))
Catch ex As Exception
    Console.WriteLine("First query: An exception was thrown: " + ex.Message)
End Try

' This query selects only those pets that are 10 or older.
' This code does not call DefaultIfEmpty().
Dim oldPets2() As String = _
    pets.AsQueryable() _
    .Where(Function(Pet) Pet.Age >= 10) _
    .Select(Function(Pet) Pet.Name) _
    .ToArray()

' There may be no elements in the array, so directly
' accessing element 0 may throw an exception.
Try
    MsgBox("Second query: " + oldPets2(0))
Catch ex As Exception
    MsgBox("Second query: An exception was thrown: " + ex.Message)
End Try