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Using NULL Conditional Operator With Indexes

NULL conditional operator or NULL propagation operator was introduced with C# 6.0 and you will find dozens of blogs and articles on NULL conditional operator. I have also written some articles on it and following is a link for the same but I have noticed that very few people are using all the benefits of NULL conditional operator.

NULL Conditional Operator In C# 6.0

In this blog, I am going to present those hidden gems for you.

There are 2 syntaxes for NULL conditional operator, which are given below.

  • NULL conditional operator for member access (?.)
  • NULL conditional operator for index based access (?[)

So the first syntax “?.” is being used very popularly but the second syntax “?[” is used by very few people. But I am going to cover all those in this blog.

NULL conditional operator for member access (?.)

Have a look at the code snippet given below.

  1. static void Main(string[] args)  
  2.   
  3. {  
  4.   
  5. string name = null;  
  6.   
  7. int length = name.Length;  
  8.   
  9. }   
The preceding code snippet will throw an exception NullReferenceException.
 
 

If I use the NULL conditional operator (?.), then the preceding code snippet can be written as given below.

  1. static void Main(string[] args)  
  2.   
  3. {  
  4.   
  5. string name = null;  
  6.   
  7. int? length = name?.Length;  
  8.   
  9. }   
It will run successfully without throwing any exception.

NULL conditional operator for member access (?.) with null-coalescing operator (??)

if you do not want to make the length variable as Nullable int type, then you can use null-coalescing operator (??) with “?.” Follow the code snippet given below for the same.

  1. static void Main(string[] args)  
  2.   
  3. {  
  4.   
  5. string name = null;  
  6.   
  7. int length = name?.Length ?? 0;  
  8.   
  9. }   
More useful example with complete code is given below.
  1. using static System.Console;  
  2.   
  3. namespace NULLConditionalOperatorExample  
  4.   
  5. {  
  6.   
  7. class Program  
  8.   
  9. {  
  10.   
  11. static void Main(string[] args)  
  12.   
  13. {  
  14.   
  15. Customer cust = new Customer { Id=101};  
  16.   
  17. WriteLine($"Customer id: {cust.Id} & name: {cust.Name??"N/A"}");  
  18.   
  19. WriteLine($"Customer name contains {cust.Name?.Length ??0} character(s)");  
  20.   
  21. }  
  22.   
  23. }  
  24.   
  25. class Customer  
  26.   
  27. {  
  28.   
  29. public int Id { get; set; }  
  30.   
  31. public string Name { get; set; }  
  32.   
  33. }  
  34.   
  35. }  

NULL conditional operator for index based access (?[)

Have a look at the code snippet given below.
  1. static void Main(string[] args)  
  2.   
  3. {  
  4.   
  5. int[] Numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };  
  6.   
  7. Numbers = null;  
  8.   
  9. WriteLine($"5th element is: {Numbers[4]}");  
  10.   
  11. }  
The preceeding code snippet will throw an exception NullReferenceException.
 
 
 
If I use the NULL conditional operator (?[), then the preceeding code snippet can be written, as given below.

  1. static void Main(string[] args)  
  2.   
  3. {  
  4.   
  5. int[] Numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };  
  6.   
  7. Numbers = null;  
  8.   
  9. WriteLine($"5th element is: {Numbers?[4]}");  
  10.   
  11. }  
It will run successfully without throwing any exception.

You can also learn about C# 7 by going through the links given below.
Next Recommended Reading Null Conditional Operator In C#