Is the null coalesce operator thread safe?

Question

So this is the meat of the question: Can Foo.Bar ever return null? To clarify, can \'_bar\' be set to null after it\'s evaluated as non-null and before it\'s value is retur

Answer 1

The getter will never return null.

This is because when the read is performed on the variable (_bar) the expression is evaluated and the resulting object (or null) is then "free" of the variable (_bar). It is the result of this first evaluation which is then "passed" to the coalesce operator. (See Reed's good answer for the IL.)

However, this is not thread-safe and an assignment may easily be lost for the same reason as above.