Null-Coalescing Assignment Operator

C# 8.0 introduces the null-coalescing assignment operator ??=. You can use the ??= operator to assign the value of its right-hand operand to its left-hand operand only if the left-hand operand evaluates to null. In C# 7.3 the null-coalescing operator ??   also had a few requirements that are now required in C# 8.0. We will discuss this also in detail.
 
Prerequisites
 
To use Null-coalescing assignment operator ??=, you’ll need to set up your machine to run .NET Core, including the C# 8.0 compiler. The C# 8 compiler is available starting with Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3 or .NET Core 3.0 SDK.
 
Let's Start
 
Use null-coalescing assignment operator ??= to assign the value of right-hand side operand to left-hand side operand only if the left-hand side operand evaluates to null.
For instance, in the below-given code, I'm initializing a List of int named "numbers" with the null reference. Then I'm using Null-coalescing assignment operator to assign a new List of int if "numbers" value is null. 
  1. List<int> numbers = null;  
  2. int? a = null;  
  3.   
  4. (numbers ??= new List<int>()).Add(5);  
  5. Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numbers));  // output: 5  
  6.   
  7. numbers.Add(a ??= 0);  
  8. Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numbers));  // output: 5 0  
  9. Console.WriteLine(a);  // output: 0  
In previous versions of C# like 7.3 we were using other different techniques to do the same task as performed by Null-coalescing assignment operator??. For instance, I'm using Null-coalescing operator to do the same but it seems a little bit cheap. 
  1. List<int> numbers = null;  
  2. int? a = null;  
  3.               
  4. (numbers = numbers ?? new List<int>()).Add(5);  
  5. Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numbers));  // output: 5  
  6.               
  7. numbers.Add((a=a??0).Value);  
  8. Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numbers));  // output: 5 0  
  9. Console.WriteLine(a);  // output: 0  

Null-coalescing operator updated requirements

 
In C# 7.3 and earlier, the type of the left-hand operand of the ?? operator must be either a reference type or a nullable value type. Beginning with C# 8.0, that requirement is replaced with the following: the type of the left-hand operand of the ?? and ??= operators cannot be a non-nullable value type. For instance:
  1. int? number = null;  
  2. number =number?? 0;  
In particular, beginning with C# 8.0, you can use the null-coalescing operators with unconstrained type parameters. For instance, I'm using Null-coalescing operator with non-nullable type and it gives the error.
  1. int number = 5;  
  2. number = number ?? 0;  
So when I tried to build this. It gives an error:
 
ErrorCS0019Operator '??' cannot be applied to operands of type 'int' and 'int' 
 
For more new features of C# 8.0, please see MS Docs.
Author
Habibul Rehman
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