C# 8 Null-coalescing Assignment

The null-coalescing operator ?? returns the value of its left-hand operand if it is not a null value. If it is null, then it evaluates the right-hand operand and returns its result.

• In C# 8.0, a new null-coalescing assignment operator ??= assigns the value of its right-hand operand to its left-hand operand only if the left-hand operand evaluates to null.
• The ??= operator doesn't evaluate its right-hand operand if the left-hand operand evaluates to non-null.
• The left-hand operand of the ??= operator must be a variable, a property, or an indexer element.

List<int> numList = null;
numList ??= new List<int>() { 34, 71};

Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numList));  // output: 34 71

int? val = null;
numList.Add(val ??= 120);

Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ", numList));  // output: 34 71 120
Console.WriteLine(val);                        // output: 120

Before C# 8, the type of the left-hand operand of the ?? operator must be either a reference type or a nullable value type. In C# 8.0, the requirement is changed, and now the type of the left-hand operand of the ?? and ??= operators cannot be a non-nullable value type.

You can use the null-coalescing operators with unconstrained type parameters.

private static void Display<T>(T value, T backup)
{
    Console.WriteLine(value ?? backup);
}

public static void Example2()
{
    Display<string>("value", "backup value");       // value
    Display<string>(null, "backup value");          // backup value
}

In expressions with the null-conditional operators ? and ?[], you can use the ??operator to provide an alternative expression to evaluate in case the result of the expression with null-conditional operations isnull`.

private static double SumNumbers(List<double[]> numList, int index)
{
    return numList?[index]?.Sum() ?? double.NaN;
}

public static void Example3()
{
    double[] values1 = { 10.0, 20.0 };
    double[] values2 = { 30.0, 40.0 };
    double[] values3 = { 50.0, 60.0 };

    List<double[]> numList = new List<double[]>() { values1, values2, values3 };

    Console.WriteLine(SumNumbers(numList, 1));   // 70
    Console.WriteLine(SumNumbers(null, 0));      // NaN
}

Note

The operators ?? and ??= cannot be overloaded.