Safe-Dereference / Inverse Null Coalescing Support for C#

Groovy has a very handy safe-dereference operator ?. which allows for nested dereferencing without having to worry about a null reference exception.

people << new Person(name:'Ian')
highestZipCode = people.collect{ p -> p.Address?.ZipCode }.max()
println highestZipCode

While we cannot add custom operators to C#, we can use extension methods and expressions to simulate p -> p.Address?.ZipCode. To follow the naming convention in LINQ, I am going to create an extension method on object called ValueOrDefault. Since operators are not an option, expression trees are the primary option. Assuming we have a an object, our goal is to support target.ValueOrDefault( item => item.Foo.Bar().Baz ) evaluating the expression layer by layer until we finish or encounter a default(T) value. To evaluate the expression, we have to parse from the outside in, but evaluate from the inside out, and wrap every subexpression evaluation in the same safe call to ValueOrDefault. The recursion is rather fun:

In order to evaluate target.ValueOrDefault( item => item.Foo.Bar().Baz ) we need to

Determine if target is null, if so, return null
Pass target as the instance and item => item.Foo.Bar().Baz
Pull off the .Baz expression and evaluate item.Foo.Bar() with target as the instance
Pull off the .Bar() and evaluate item.Foo with target as the instance
Pull off the .Foo and evaluate item with target as the instance
There are no more member or method expressions, so target is passed back up the stack
.Foo is evaluated on the target instance. If Foo evaluates to default(T) we cascade back up the recursion tree and stop evaluating. If not, we proceed to #8 passing the value returned by .Foo as the target instance.
.Bar() is executed on the target instance. Same behavior as #7, pass the return value back up the stack
.Baz is evaluated on the target instance returned from .Bar()

Well, that’s enough theory, let’s look at the implementation.

using System;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Reflection;

public static class ObjectExtensions
{
  public static TValue ValueOrDefault<TSource, TValue>
                         ( this TSource instance,
                           Expression<Func<TSource, TValue>> expression )
  {
    return ValueOrDefault( instance, expression, true );
  }

  private static TValue ValueOrDefault<TSource, TValue>
                          ( this TSource instance,
                            Expression<Func<TSource, TValue>> expression,
                            bool nested )
  {
      return ReferenceEquals( instance, default( TSource ) )
                 ? default( TValue )
                 : nested ? EvaluateExpression( instance, expression )
                          : expression.Compile()( instance );
  }

  internal static TProperty EvaluateExpression<TSource, TProperty>
                              ( TSource source,
                                Expression<Func<TSource, TProperty>> expression )
  {
    var method = expression.Body as MethodCallExpression;
    if ( method != null ) {
      return ValueOrDefault( source, expression, false );
    }

    var body = expression.Body as MemberExpression;
    if ( body == null ) {
      const string format = "Expression '{0}' must refer to a property.";
      string message = string.Format( format, expression );
      throw new ArgumentException( message );
    }

    object value = EvaluateMemberExpression( source, body );
    if ( ReferenceEquals( value, null ) ) {
      return default( TProperty );
    }
    return (TProperty) value;
  }

  private static object EvaluateMemberExpression
                          ( object instance,
                            MemberExpression memberExpression )
  {
    if ( memberExpression == null ) {
      return instance;
    }
    instance = EvaluateMemberExpression( instance, memberExpression.Expression as MemberExpression );
    var propertyInfo = memberExpression.Member as PropertyInfo;
    instance = ValueOrDefault( instance, item => propertyInfo.GetValue( item, null ), false );
    return instance;
  }
}

The key thing to grok is the inside out evaluation. If you want to play around with this code, I have included a number of tests below to make sure that everything is in working order. Having ?. added to the C# language is high on my list of desired vNext features. Hopefully the C# team agrees.

Tests and Example Usage

using Xunit;

public class Person
{
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public Address Address { get; set; }
}

public class Address
{
  public string StreetName { get; set; }
  public ZipCode ZipCode { get; set; }
}

public class ZipCode
{
  public int Body { get; set; }
  public int? Suffix { get; set; }
  public Zone Zone { get; set; }
  public Zone GetZone() { return Zone; }
}

public class Zone
{
  public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class ObjectExtensionTests
{
  [Fact]
  public void when_the_accessed_object_is_null_then_null_is_returned()
  {
    Person person = null;
    string result = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Name );
    Assert.Equal( null, result );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_the_accessed_property_is_null_then_null_is_returned()
  {
    var person = new Person { Name = null };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Name );
    Assert.Equal( null, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_the_accessed_property_is_not_null_then_its_value_is_returned()
  {
    const string name = "Ian";
    var person = new Person { Name = name };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Name );
    Assert.Equal( name, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_complex_property_is_null_then_null_is_returned()
  {
    var person = new Person { Address = null };
    Address value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address );
    Assert.Equal( null, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void EvaluateExpression_non_nested_properties_are_evaluated()
  {
     const string name = "Ian";
     var person = new Person { Name = name };
     string value = ObjectExtensions.EvaluateExpression( person, p => p.Name );
     Assert.Equal( name, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void EvaluateExpression_nested_properties_are_evaluated()
  {
    const string name = "Ian";
    var person = new Person { Address = new Address { StreetName = name } };
    string value = ObjectExtensions.EvaluateExpression( person, p => p.Address.StreetName );
    Assert.Equal( name, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_nested_accessed_property_is_null_then_null_is_returned()
  {
    var person = new Person { Address = null };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.StreetName );
    Assert.Equal( null, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_nested_accessed_property_is_not_null_then_its_value_is_returned()
  {
    const string name = "Ian";
    var person = new Person { Address = new Address { StreetName = name } };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.StreetName );
    Assert.Equal( name, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_double_nested_accessed_propertys_parent_is_null_then_defaultT_is_returned()
  {
    var person = new Person { Address = null };
    int value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.ZipCode.Body );
    Assert.Equal( 0, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_double_nested_accessed_propertys_parent_is_null_then_defaultT_is_returned_for_nullable_types()
  {
    var person = new Person { Address = null };
    int? value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.ZipCode.Suffix );
    Assert.Equal( null, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_double_nested_accessed_property_is_not_null_then_its_value_is_returned()
  {
    const int body = 99016;
    var person = new Person { Address = new Address { ZipCode = new ZipCode { Body = body } } };
    int value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.ZipCode.Body );
    Assert.Equal( body, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_triple_nested_accessed_propertys_parent_is_null_then_null_is_returned()
  {
    var person = new Person { Address = null };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.ZipCode.Zone.Name );
    Assert.Equal( (object) null, value );
  }

  [Fact]
  public void when_a_triple_nested_accessed_property_is_not_null_then_its_value_is_returned()
  {
    const string name = "Yay";
    var person = new Person
                   { Address = new Address { ZipCode = new ZipCode { Zone = new Zone { Name = name } } } };
    string value = person.ValueOrDefault( p => p.Address.ZipCode.Zone.Name );
    Assert.Equal( name, value );
  }
}