Can't operator == be applied to generic types in C#?

Question

According to the documentation of the == operator in MSDN,

For predefined value types, the equality operator (==) returns true if th

Answer 1

As others have said, it will only work when T is constrained to be a reference type. Without any constraints, you can compare with null, but only null - and that comparison will always be false for non-nullable value types.

Instead of calling Equals, it's better to use an IComparer - and if you have no more information, EqualityComparer.Default is a good choice:

public bool Compare(T x, T y)
{
    return EqualityComparer.Default.Equals(x, y);
}

Aside from anything else, this avoids boxing/casting.