C# – How does comparison operator works with null int

cnullable

I am starting to learn nullable types and ran into following behavior.

While trying nullable int, i see comparison operator gives me unexpected result. For example, In my code below, The output i get is "both and 1 are equal". Note, it does not print "null" as well.

int? a = null;
int? b = 1;

if (a < b)
    Console.WriteLine("{0} is bigger than {1}", b, a);
else if (a > b)
    Console.WriteLine("{0} is bigger than {1}", a, b);
else
    Console.WriteLine("both {0} and {1} are equal", a, b);

I was hoping any non-negative integer would be greater than null, Am i missing something here?

Best Answer

According to MSDN - it's down the page in the "Operators" section:

When you perform comparisons with nullable types, if the value of one of the nullable types is null and the other is not, all comparisons evaluate to false except for !=

So both a > b and a < b evaluate to false since a is null...

Related Solutions

C# – How to cast int to enum

From an int:

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum)yourInt;

From a string:

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum) Enum.Parse(typeof(YourEnum), yourString);

// The foo.ToString().Contains(",") check is necessary for enumerations marked with an [Flags] attribute
if (!Enum.IsDefined(typeof(YourEnum), foo) && !foo.ToString().Contains(","))
{
    throw new InvalidOperationException($"{yourString} is not an underlying value of the YourEnum enumeration.")
}

Update:

From number you can also

YourEnum foo = (YourEnum)Enum.ToObject(typeof(YourEnum) , yourInt);

C# – Can’t operator == be applied to generic types in C#

As others have said, it will only work when T is constrained to be a reference type. Without any constraints, you can compare with null, but only null - and that comparison will always be false for non-nullable value types.

Instead of calling Equals, it's better to use an IComparer<T> - and if you have no more information, EqualityComparer<T>.Default is a good choice:

public bool Compare<T>(T x, T y)
{
    return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(x, y);
}

Aside from anything else, this avoids boxing/casting.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – How to cast int to enum

C# – Can’t operator == be applied to generic types in C#

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