Is there an "opposite" to the null coalescing operator? (…in any language?)
- by Jay
null coalescing translates roughly to return x, unless it is null, in which case return y
I often need return null if x is null, otherwise return x.y
I can use return x == null ? null : x.y;
Not bad, but that null in the middle always bothers me -- it seems superfluous. I'd prefer something like return x :: x.y;, where what follows the :: is evaluated only if what precedes it is not null.
I see this as almost an opposite to null coalescence, kind of mixed in with a terse, inline null-check, but I'm [almost] certain that there is no such operator in C#.
Are there other languages that have such an operator? If so, what is it called?
(I know that I can write a method for it in C#; I use return NullOrValue.of(x, () => x.y);, but if you have anything better, I'd like to see that too.)
