Comparing boxed value types

Question

Today I stumbled upon an interesting bug I wrote. I have a set of properties which can be set through a general setter. These properties can be value types or reference type

Answer 1

How about this:

if(object.ReferenceEquals(first, second)) { return; }
if(first.Equals(second)) { return; }

// they must differ, right?

Update

I realized this doesn't work as expected for a certain case:

• For value types, ReferenceEquals returns false so we fall back to Equals, which behaves as expected.
• For reference types where ReferenceEquals returns true, we consider them "same" as expected.
• For reference types where ReferenceEquals returns false and Equals returns false, we consider them "different" as expected.
• For reference types where ReferenceEquals returns false and Equals returns true, we consider them "same" even though we want "different"

So the lesson is "don't get clever"