Check All Child Properties For Null in C#

Question

I have the following line of code below. Is there a method that can check team, DivisionTeam, Team, Coordinator, Profile, Address, and the last property StateRegion for null instead of doing it for every property?

if(team.DivisionTeam.Team.Coordinator.Profile.Address.StateRegion != null)

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2080647/deep-null-checking-is-there-a-better-way — Ivan Golović, Jul 12 '12 at 06:28
[C# elegant way to check if a property's property is null](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3468250/c-sharp-elegant-way-to-check-if-a-propertys-property-is-null) — Jacob Seleznev, Jul 12 '12 at 06:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

2

Currently in C#, you can't, you have to individually check each property for null.

May be you are looking for ".?" operator, but its not there in C# 4.0, Check out this post and the response from Eric Lippert: Deep null checking, is there a better way?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered Jul 12 '12 at 06:28

Habib

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Can you use reflection at all? – Mike Flynn Jul 12 '12 at 06:33
@MikeFlynn, I am not sure, how would you use reflection in this case ? – Habib Jul 12 '12 at 06:38

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 12 '12 at 13:34

1

You should check the following article: Chained null checks and the Maybe monad. This is, IMO, the cleanest way to actually "do" what you are asking for.

And, no, there is no inbuilt way in C# to do this directly.

answered Jul 12 '12 at 13:34

InBetween

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 09 '16 at 15:35

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In C# 6.0 you can do it in just one string:

var something = team?.DivisionTeam?.Team?.Coordinator?.Profile?.Address?.StateRegion;

Check this article for further reading: null-conditional operator.

answered Feb 09 '16 at 15:35

ZuoLi

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 12 '12 at 06:32

Here is a sample

private bool IsValidTeam(Team team)
{ 
    bool result = false;
    if (team != null)
        if (team.DivisionTeam != null)
            if (team.DivisionTeam.Team != null)
                if (team.DivisionTeam.Team.Coordinator != null)
                    if (team.DivisionTeam.Team.Coordinator.Profile != null)
                        if (team.DivisionTeam.Team.Coordinator.Profile.Address != null)
                            if (team.DivisionTeam.Team.Coordinator.Profile.Address.StateRegion != null)
                                result = true;
    return result;
}

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 23 '17 at 13:38

0

Check my answer here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/34086283/4711853

You could simply write a small extension method, which afford you to write chained lambda like this:

var value = instance.DefaultOrValue(x => x.SecondInstance)
            .DefaultOrValue(x => x.ThirdInstance)
            .DefaultOrValue(x => x.Value);

edited Aug 23 '17 at 13:38

Beetee

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answered Dec 04 '15 at 10:50

Roma Borodov

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Check All Child Properties For Null in C#

5 Answers5