Do properties always have a value when unset?

Question

I have a property like this:

public Tuple[] Breadcrumbs { get; set; }

and I have a test in one of my methods like thi

Answer 1

An automatically-implemented property which hasn't been explicitly set by any code will always have the default value for the property type - which is null for reference types. (For int it would be 0, for char it would be '\0' etc).

An automatically implemented property like this is just equivalent to:

private PropertyType property;
public PropertyType Property
{
    get { return property; }
    set { property = value; }
}

... except that the backing variable has an unspeakable name (you can't refer to it in code) so it will always start off with the default value for the type.