Unique ways to use the Null Coalescing operator

Posted by Atomiton on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Atomiton
Published on 2008-11-10T18:21:27Z Indexed on 2010/04/25 8:03 UTC
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I know the standard way of using the Null coalescing operator in C# is to set default values.

string nobody = null;
string somebody = "Bob Saget";
string anybody = "";

anybody = nobody   ?? "Mr. T"; // returns Mr. T
anybody = somebody ?? "Mr. T"; // returns "Bob Saget"

But what else can ?? be used for? It doesn't seem as useful as the ternary operator, apart from being more concise and easier to read than:

nobody = null;
anybody = nobody == null ? "Bob Saget" : nobody; // returns Bob Saget

So given that fewer even know about null coalescing operator...

Have you used ?? for something else?

Is ?? necessary, or should you just use the ternary operator (that most are familiar with)

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