Null or default comparison of generic argument in

Question

I have a generic method defined like this:

public void MyMethod<T>(T myArgument)

The first thing I want to do is check if the value of myArgument is the default value for that type, something like this:

if (myArgument == default(T))

But this doesn't compile because I haven't guaranteed that T will implement the == operator. So I switched the code to this:

if (myArgument.Equals(default(T)))

Now this compiles, but will fail if myArgument is null, which is part of what I'm testing for. I can add an explicit null check like this:

if (myArgument == null || myArgument.Equals(default(T)))

Now this feels redundant to me. ReSharper is even suggesting that I change the myArgument == null part into myArgument == default(T) which is where I started. Is there a better way to solve this problem?

I need to support both references types and value types.

Answer 1

I think you probably need to split this logic into two parts and check for null first.

public static bool IsNullOrEmpty<T>(T value)
{
    if (IsNull(value))
    {
        return true;
    }
    if (value is string)
    {
        return string.IsNullOrEmpty(value as string);
    }
    return value.Equals(default(T));
}

public static bool IsNull<T>(T value)
{
    if (value is ValueType)
    {
        return false;
    }
    return null == (object)value;
}

In the IsNull method, we're relying on the fact that ValueType objects can't be null by definition so if value happens to be a class which derives from ValueType, we already know it's not null. On the other hand, if it's not a value type then we can just compare value cast to an object against null. We could avoid the check against ValueType by going straight to a cast to object, but that would mean that a value type would get boxed which is something we probably want to avoid since it implies that a new object is created on the heap.

In the IsNullOrEmpty method, we're checking for the special case of a string. For all other types, we're comparing the value (which already know is not null) against it's default value which for all reference types is null and for value types is usually some form of zero (if they're integral).

Using these methods, the following code behaves as you might expect:

class Program
{
    public class MyClass
    {
        public string MyString { get; set; }
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        int  i1 = 1;    Test("i1", i1); // False
        int  i2 = 0;    Test("i2", i2); // True
        int? i3 = 2;    Test("i3", i3); // False
        int? i4 = null; Test("i4", i4); // True

        Console.WriteLine();

        string s1 = "hello";      Test("s1", s1); // False
        string s2 = null;         Test("s2", s2); // True
        string s3 = string.Empty; Test("s3", s3); // True
        string s4 = "";           Test("s4", s4); // True

        Console.WriteLine();

        MyClass mc1 = new MyClass(); Test("mc1", mc1); // False
        MyClass mc2 = null;          Test("mc2", mc2); // True
    }

    public static void Test<T>(string fieldName, T field)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(fieldName + ": " + IsNullOrEmpty(field));
    }

    // public static bool IsNullOrEmpty<T>(T value) ...

    // public static bool IsNull<T>(T value) ...
}

Answer 2

To handle all types of T, including where T is a primitive type, you'll need to compile in both methods of comparison:

    T Get<T>(Func<T> createObject)
    {
        T obj = createObject();
        if (obj == null || obj.Equals(default(T)))
            return obj;

        // .. do a bunch of stuff
        return obj;
    }

Answer 3

I use:

public class MyClass<T>
{
  private bool IsNull() 
  {
    var nullable = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(typeof(T)) != null;
    return nullable ? EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(Value, default(T)) : false;
  }
}

Answer 4

How about this:

if (object.Equals(myArgument, default(T)))
{
    //...
}

Using the static object.Equals() method avoids the need for you to do the null check yourself. Explicitly qualifying the call with object. probably isn't necessary depending on your context, but I normally prefix static calls with the type name just to make the code more soluble.

Answer 5

Don't know if this works with your requirements or not, but you could constrain T to be a Type that implements an interface such as IComparable and then use the ComparesTo() method from that interface (which IIRC supports/handles nulls) like this:

public void MyMethod<T>(T myArgument) where T : IComparable
...
if (0 == myArgument.ComparesTo(default(T)))

There are probably other interfaces that you could use as well IEquitable, etc.

Answer 6

(Edited)

Marc Gravell has the best answer, but I wanted to post a simple code snippet I worked up to demonstrate it. Just run this in a simple C# console app:

public static class TypeHelper<T>
{
    public static bool IsDefault(T val)
    {
         return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(obj,default(T));
    }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    // value type
    Console.WriteLine(TypeHelper<int>.IsDefault(1)); //False
    Console.WriteLine(TypeHelper<int>.IsDefault(0)); // True

    // reference type
    Console.WriteLine(TypeHelper<string>.IsDefault("test")); //False
    Console.WriteLine(TypeHelper<string>.IsDefault(null)); //True //True

    Console.ReadKey();
}

One more thing: can someone with VS2008 try this as an extension method? I'm stuck with 2005 here and I'm curious to see if that would be allowed.

---

Edit: Here is how to get it working as an extension method:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // value type
        Console.WriteLine(1.IsDefault());
        Console.WriteLine(0.IsDefault());

        // reference type
        Console.WriteLine("test".IsDefault());
        // null must be cast to a type
        Console.WriteLine(((String)null).IsDefault());
    }
}

// The type cannot be generic
public static class TypeHelper
{
    // I made the method generic instead
    public static bool IsDefault<T>(this T val)
    {
        return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(val, default(T));
    }
}