Why can't I define a default constructor for a struct in .NET?

Question

In .NET, a value type (C# struct) can\'t have a constructor with no parameters. According to this post this is mandated by the CLI specification. What happens i

Answer 1

What I use is the null-coalescing operator (??) combined with a backing field like this:

public struct SomeStruct {
  private SomeRefType m_MyRefVariableBackingField;

  public SomeRefType MyRefVariable {
    get { return m_MyRefVariableBackingField ?? (m_MyRefVariableBackingField = new SomeRefType()); }
  }
}

Hope this helps ;)

Note: the null coalescing assignment is currently a feature proposal for C# 8.0.