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C# And Nullable Types
Since 2.0 C# has Nullable(T) Generic Structure. The idea behind is to allow value type objects to have null values just like reference types have. This concerns scenarios where not all data sources have values (like a database column for instance) and assigning a value will change the result.
Nullable type is applicable to primitive (known as value) types where data is stored in the stack and .NET Framework implicitly initializes them to their default values, even though the developer did not do that. Applying Nullable type to primitive types helps going round discomfort of looking for equivalent decisions like creating:
Nullable types can be declared in two ways:
Since 2.0 C# has Nullable(T) Generic Structure. The idea behind is to allow value type objects to have null values just like reference types have. This concerns scenarios where not all data sources have values (like a database column for instance) and assigning a value will change the result.
Nullable type is applicable to primitive (known as value) types where data is stored in the stack and .NET Framework implicitly initializes them to their default values, even though the developer did not do that. Applying Nullable type to primitive types helps going round discomfort of looking for equivalent decisions like creating:
- A boxed value type. This is not strongly-typed at compile-time, and involves doing a heap allocation for every type.
- A class wrapper for the value type. This is strongly-typed, but still involves a heap allocation, and the you have to write the wrapper.
- A struct wrapper that supports the concept of nullability. This is a good solution, but you have to write it yourself.
Nullable types can be declared in two ways:
T is the underlying type of the variable. It can be a struct but cannot be reference type.
Any value type may be used as the basis for a nullable type. For example:
Each instance of the above inherits two public read-only properties from Nullable type:
- HasValue – bool type stating that variable contains a value
- Value – variable underlying type value meaningful for the type (excluding null). Attempt to get the Value which has no value assigned (HasValue is false) will raise InvalidOperationException.
Testing for meaningful value can be done in two ways
Some notes about bool value type
When a bool variable is defined as nullable (i.e. bool? a) it can contains tree values: true, false and null. This make it unusable in if, for and while conditional constructions. The following will cause and error:
This is because in the case of a null value it is not clear what it means in this context – true or false. To avoid this, check HasValue first and then if it is true, cast to bool. Be aware that if cast is made when value is null an InvalidOperationException
Nullable Type Identification
Using GetType method or the is operator to obtain type information from Nullable variables at runtime will return underlying type not the Nullable type itself. This happens because GetType on a Nullable type will fire boxing to Object.
is operator operates on Nullable’s underlying types and cannot be used to determine whether a variable is Nullable type.
Boxing
Nullable types can be boxed only if their value is non-null. When value is not null boxing is on the value type itself, not on System.Nullable(T) that wraps the value type.
Boxed nullable types can be tested for null:
Boxed nullable types has full functionality of the underlying type:
Using Nullable type is very convenient in number of cases and reduce code writing. More info on the topic is available here
http://msdn.microsoft.com
by: kaufmed on 2010-05-15 at 10:32:19ID: 14553