C# – In C#, what happens when you call an extension method on a null object

cextension-methodsnullparameters

Does the method get called with a null value or does it give a null reference exception?

MyObject myObject = null;
myObject.MyExtensionMethod(); // <-- is this a null reference exception?

If this is the case I will never need to check my 'this' parameter for null?

Best Answer

That will work fine (no exception). Extension methods don't use virtual calls (i.e. it uses the "call" il instruction, not "callvirt") so there is no null check unless you write it yourself in the extension method. This is actually useful in a few cases:

public static bool IsNullOrEmpty(this string value)
{
    return string.IsNullOrEmpty(value);
}
public static void ThrowIfNull<T>(this T obj, string parameterName)
        where T : class
{
    if(obj == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(parameterName);
}

etc

Fundamentally, calls to static calls are very literal - i.e.

string s = ...
if(s.IsNullOrEmpty()) {...}

becomes:

string s = ...
if(YourExtensionClass.IsNullOrEmpty(s)) {...}

where there is obviously no null check.

Related Solutions

C# – How to return NULL from a generic method in C#

Two options:

Return default(T) which means you'll return null if T is a reference type (or a nullable value type), 0 for int, '\0' for char, etc. (Default values table (C# Reference))
Restrict T to be a reference type with the where T : class constraint and then return null as normal

C# – Case insensitive ‘Contains(string)’

You could use the String.IndexOf Method and pass StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase as the type of search to use:

string title = "STRING";
bool contains = title.IndexOf("string", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0;

Even better is defining a new extension method for string:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static bool Contains(this string source, string toCheck, StringComparison comp)
    {
        return source?.IndexOf(toCheck, comp) >= 0;
    }
}

Note, that null propagation ?. is available since C# 6.0 (VS 2015), for older versions use

if (source == null) return false;
return source.IndexOf(toCheck, comp) >= 0;

USAGE:

string title = "STRING";
bool contains = title.Contains("string", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase);

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – How to return NULL from a generic method in C#

C# – Case insensitive ‘Contains(string)’

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