if condition with nullable

Question

There is a lot of syntax sugar with Nullable like those:

int? parsed to Nullable

int? x = null
   if (x != null) // Parsed          


        

Answer 1

Technically it doesn't work because Nullable does not define a conversion operator to bool.

Practically it is not supported for a variety of reasons, including:

• There are no implicit conversions to bool anywhere in C# -- why should there be in Nullable?
• Any conversion available would have to be declared for every T in Nullable -- how is that possible when you can plug in your own type as T that the compiler knows nothing about?
• What would be the semantics of if(!x)?