How useful is C#'s ?? operator?

Question

So I have been intrigued by the ?? operator, but have still been unable to use it. I usually think about it when I am doing something like:

var x = (someObje         


        

Answer 1

Just as an FYI, the ternary operator generates a different sequence of IL from the null coalescing operator. The first looks something like such:

// string s = null;
// string y = s != null ? s : "Default";
    ldloc.0
    brtrue.s notnull1
    ldstr "Default"
    br.s isnull1
    notnull1: ldloc.0
    isnull1: stloc.1

And the latter looks like such:

// y = s ?? "Default";
    ldloc.0
    dup
    brtrue.s notnull2
    pop
    ldstr "Default"
    notnull2: stloc.1

Based on this, I'd say the null coalescing operator is optimized for its purpose and is not just syntactic sugar.