Comments on: When to check for null http://www.geekality.net/2009/01/15/when-to-check-for-null/ With a hint of Social Ineptitude Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:50:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: <img src='http://www.geekality.net/wp-content/plugins/rpx/images/openid.png'/> Torleif http://www.geekality.net/2009/01/15/when-to-check-for-null/#comment-431 Torleif Sat, 15 May 2010 11:14:37 +0000 http://www.geekality.net/?p=48#comment-431 Seen it and tried to use it a bit. For example when I make things that returns iterators or arrays I try to always return empty ones instead of null. The colon-operator in Delphi Prism looks quite nice! In C# you have the ??-operator which is not as smooth, but still helps a bit with null checks. Instead of doing: <code lang="csharp">var something = possibly_null != null ? possibly_null : alternative_if_null;</code> You can shorten it to: <code lang="csharp">var something = possibly_null ?? alternative_if_null;</code> So if you had an object to represent a null or empty object you could do like this: <code lang="csharp">var something = (some_container ?? Container.Empty).SomeProperty;</code> Seen it and tried to use it a bit. For example when I make things that returns iterators or arrays I try to always return empty ones instead of null.

The colon-operator in Delphi Prism looks quite nice! In C# you have the ??-operator which is not as smooth, but still helps a bit with null checks.

Instead of doing:

var something = possibly_null != null ? possibly_null : alternative_if_null;

You can shorten it to:

var something = possibly_null ?? alternative_if_null;

So if you had an object to represent a null or empty object you could do like this:

var something = (some_container ?? Container.Empty).SomeProperty;
]]> By: <img src='http://www.geekality.net/wp-content/plugins/rpx/images/openid.png'/> Vegar http://www.geekality.net/2009/01/15/when-to-check-for-null/#comment-4 Vegar Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:43:36 +0000 http://www.geekality.net/?p=48#comment-4 Have you seen the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Object_pattern" rel="nofollow">'Null object pattern' </a> ? Haven't tried it out my self, but it would reduce amount of null-checking. And then there is the <a href="http://prismwiki.codegear.com/en/Colon_Operator" rel="nofollow">colon-operator'</a> in Delphi Prism. Have you seen the ‘Null object pattern’ ? Haven’t tried it out my self, but it would reduce amount of null-checking.

And then there is the colon-operator’ in Delphi Prism.

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