an expression tree lambda may not contain a null propagating operator

Question

Question: The line price = co?.price ?? 0, in the following code gives me the above error. but if I remove ? from co.?

Answer 1

While expression tree does not support the C# 6.0 null propagating, what we can do is create a visitor that modify expression tree for safe null propagation, just like the operator does!

Here is mine:

public class NullPropagationVisitor : ExpressionVisitor
{
    private readonly bool _recursive;

    public NullPropagationVisitor(bool recursive)
    {
        _recursive = recursive;
    }

    protected override Expression VisitUnary(UnaryExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        if (propertyAccess.Operand is MemberExpression mem)
            return VisitMember(mem);

        if (propertyAccess.Operand is MethodCallExpression met)
            return VisitMethodCall(met);

        if (propertyAccess.Operand is ConditionalExpression cond)
            return Expression.Condition(
                    test: cond.Test,
                    ifTrue: MakeNullable(Visit(cond.IfTrue)),
                    ifFalse: MakeNullable(Visit(cond.IfFalse)));

        return base.VisitUnary(propertyAccess);
    }

    protected override Expression VisitMember(MemberExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        return Common(propertyAccess.Expression, propertyAccess);
    }

    protected override Expression VisitMethodCall(MethodCallExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        if (propertyAccess.Object == null)
            return base.VisitMethodCall(propertyAccess);

        return Common(propertyAccess.Object, propertyAccess);
    }

    private BlockExpression Common(Expression instance, Expression propertyAccess)
    {
        var safe = _recursive ? base.Visit(instance) : instance;
        var caller = Expression.Variable(safe.Type, "caller");
        var assign = Expression.Assign(caller, safe);
        var acess = MakeNullable(new ExpressionReplacer(instance,
            IsNullableStruct(instance) ? caller : RemoveNullable(caller)).Visit(propertyAccess));
        var ternary = Expression.Condition(
                    test: Expression.Equal(caller, Expression.Constant(null)),
                    ifTrue: Expression.Constant(null, acess.Type),
                    ifFalse: acess);

        return Expression.Block(
            type: acess.Type,
            variables: new[]
            {
                caller,
            },
            expressions: new Expression[]
            {
                assign,
                ternary,
            });
    }

    private static Expression MakeNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        if (IsNullable(ex))
            return ex;

        return Expression.Convert(ex, typeof(Nullable<>).MakeGenericType(ex.Type));
    }

    private static bool IsNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        return !ex.Type.IsValueType || (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(ex.Type) != null);
    }

    private static bool IsNullableStruct(Expression ex)
    {
        return ex.Type.IsValueType && (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(ex.Type) != null);
    }

    private static Expression RemoveNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        if (IsNullableStruct(ex))
            return Expression.Convert(ex, ex.Type.GenericTypeArguments[0]);

        return ex;
    }

    private class ExpressionReplacer : ExpressionVisitor
    {
        private readonly Expression _oldEx;
        private readonly Expression _newEx;

        internal ExpressionReplacer(Expression oldEx, Expression newEx)
        {
            _oldEx = oldEx;
            _newEx = newEx;
        }

        public override Expression Visit(Expression node)
        {
            if (node == _oldEx)
                return _newEx;

            return base.Visit(node);
        }
    }
}

It passes on the following tests:

private static string Foo(string s) => s;

static void Main(string[] _)
{
    var visitor = new NullPropagationVisitor(recursive: true);

    Test1();
    Test2();
    Test3();

    void Test1()
    {
        Expression> f = s => s == "foo" ? 'X' : Foo(s).Length.ToString()[0];

        var fBody = (Expression>)visitor.Visit(f);

        var fFunc = fBody.Compile();

        Debug.Assert(fFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(fFunc("bar") == '3');
        Debug.Assert(fFunc("foo") == 'X');
    }

    void Test2()
    {
        Expression> y = s => s.Length;

        var yBody = visitor.Visit(y.Body);
        var yFunc = Expression.Lambda>(
                                    body: yBody,
                                    parameters: y.Parameters)
                            .Compile();

        Debug.Assert(yFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(yFunc("bar") == 3);
    }

    void Test3()
    {
        Expression> y = s => s.Value.ToString()[0].ToString();

        var yBody = visitor.Visit(y.Body);
        var yFunc = Expression.Lambda>(
                                    body: yBody,
                                    parameters: y.Parameters)
                            .Compile();

        Debug.Assert(yFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(yFunc('A') == "A");
    }
}