Thread: if (Obj) do

This is one of those trivia topics about the language features.

In C you could do

Code:

if (obj) {...}

In C# you have to do

Code:

if (obj != null) {...}

The funny thing is that C is a more object oriented style approach. It practically uses an overloaded if() when C# has an if for only logical operations and bool values (not for pointers and references).

If there had to be a separation between bool and references, I would choose to have the bool variables have a == true in an if. Makes more sense for me. You read if(obj) as "if this object (exists)" rather than "if this obj is true". And if (obj != null) would read "if the value of this obj is not equal to null" mixing objects with values.

What do you think? Except the obvious answer "I have better things to do in my life"

Originally Posted by MWAAAHAAA

Someone's clearly missing the point.

That could be any one of us, not clear who you mean

You could do like this:

Code:

public class Test
{
	public Test()
	{
	}

	public static implicit operator bool(Test t)
	{
		return (t != null);
	}
}

var t = new Test();

if(t)
{
	System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Hey it's true!");
}

t = null;

if(!t)
{
	System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("And now it's false!");
}

Couldn't that be built in? Well, MS I guess had its reasons but I simply cannot imagine them.