What is the type of null literal?

Question

Dear all, I wonder what is the type of null literal in C#?

In Java, the null literal is of the special null type:

Th

Answer 1

Despite of having no runtime type, null can be cast to a type at compile time, as this example shows.

At runtime, you can find that variable stringAsObject holds a string, not only an object, but you cannot find any type for variables nullString and nullStringAsObject.

public enum Answer { Object, String, Int32, FileInfo };
private Answer GetAnswer(int i) { return Answer.Int32; }
private Answer GetAnswer(string s) { return Answer.String; }
private Answer GetAnswer(object o) { return Answer.Object; }

[TestMethod]
public void MusingAboutNullAtRuntimeVsCompileTime()
{
    string nullString = null;
    object nullStringAsObject = (string)null;
    object stringAsObject = "a string";

    // resolved at runtime
    Expect.Throws(typeof(ArgumentNullException), () => Type.GetTypeHandle(nullString));
    Expect.Throws(typeof(ArgumentNullException), () => Type.GetTypeHandle(nullStringAsObject));
    Assert.AreEqual(typeof(string), Type.GetTypeFromHandle(Type.GetTypeHandle(stringAsObject)));
    Assert.AreEqual(typeof(string), stringAsObject.GetType());

    // resolved at compile time
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.String, this.GetAnswer(nullString));
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.Object, this.GetAnswer(nullStringAsObject));
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.Object, this.GetAnswer(stringAsObject));
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.Object, this.GetAnswer((object)null));
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.String, this.GetAnswer((string)null));
    Assert.AreEqual(Answer.String, this.GetAnswer(null));
}

// Uncommenting the following method overload
// makes the last statement in the test case ambiguous to the compiler
// private Answer GetAnswer(FileInfo f) { return Answer.FileInfo; }