Have you ever wanted to know if a specific EPiServer page exists for a specific language? I recently came across an implementation that looked something like this:

try
{
    DataFactory.Instance.GetPage(myPageLink,
       new LanguageSelector("en");
}
catch
{
   //The specified language does not exist
} 

Obviously this implementation has one major flaw: exceptions should never be used for logical branching. You should never replace if - else with try - catch.

Creating a valuable helper class

My alternative implementation looks like this:

/// <summary>
/// Used to retrieve pages of a specific language version
/// </summary>
public class PageLanguage
{
    private bool _languageExists=false;
    private PageData _requestedPageLanguage=null;

    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes the object and checks whether or not the 
    /// page exists within the specified language branch
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pageLink">
    /// A valid PageReference object</param>
    /// <param name="languageBranch">
    /// The language branch to look for/retrieve</param>
    public PageLanguage(PageReference pageLink, 
        string languageBranch)
    {
        PageDataCollection languages = 
            DataFactory.Instance.GetLanguageBranches(pageLink);

        foreach (PageData p in languages)
        {
            if (p.LanguageBranch == languageBranch && 
                !p.PendingPublish)
            {
                _languageExists = true;
                _requestedPageLanguage = p;
            }
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets a value indicating whether or not the specified 
    /// page exists for the specified language branch
    /// </summary>
    public bool LanguageExists
    {
        get { return _languageExists; }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the page in the specified language if available, 
    /// otherwise null is returned
    /// </summary>
    public PageData Page
    {
        get { return _requestedPageLanguage; }
    }
}

Using the PageLanguage class

Now I can use my newly implemented PageLanguage class in this slick manner:

PageLanguage language = new PageLanguage(
   CurrentPageLink,targetLanguage);

if (language.LanguageExists)
    return language.Page;
else
    return fallbackPage;