C# generic type constraint for everything nullable

Question

So I have this class:

public class Foo where T : ???
{
    private T item;

    public bool IsNull()
    {
        return item == null;
    }

}
         


        

Answer 1

If you are willing to make a runtime check in Foo's constructor rather than having a compile-time check, you can check if the type is not a reference or nullable type, and throw an exception if that's the case.

I realise that only having a runtime check may be unacceptable, but just in case:

public class Foo
{
    private T item;

    public Foo()
    {
        var type = typeof(T);

        if (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(type) != null)
            return;

        if (type.IsClass)
            return;

        throw new InvalidOperationException("Type is not nullable or reference type.");
    }

    public bool IsNull()
    {
        return item == null;
    }
}

Then the following code compiles, but the last one (foo3) throws an exception in the constructor:

var foo1 = new Foo();
Console.WriteLine(foo1.IsNull());

var foo2 = new Foo();
Console.WriteLine(foo2.IsNull());

var foo3= new Foo();  // THROWS
Console.WriteLine(foo3.IsNull());