Is there an “opposite” to the null coalescing operator? (…in any language?)

Question

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

Answer 1

There's the null-safe dereferencing operator (?.) in Groovy... I think that's what you're after.

(It's also called the safe navigation operator.)

For example:

homePostcode = person?.homeAddress?.postcode

This will give null if person, person.homeAddress or person.homeAddress.postcode is null.

(This is now available in C# 6.0 but not in earlier versions)