Initializing list property without “new List” causes NullReferenceException

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

class Parent
{
   public Child Child { get; set; }
}

class Child
{
   public List<string> Strings { get; set; }
}

static class Program
{
   static void Main() {
      // bad object initialization
      var parent = new Parent() {
         Child = {
            Strings = { "hello", "world" }
         }
      };
   }
}

The above program compiles fine, but crashes at runtime with Object reference not set to an instance of the object.

If you notice in the above snippet, I have omitted new while initializing the child properties.

Obviously the correct way to initialize is:

      var parent = new Parent() {
         Child = new Child() {
            Strings = new List<string> { "hello", "world" }
         }
      };

My question is why does the C# compiler not complain when it sees the first construct?

Why is the broken initialization valid syntax?

      var parent = new Parent() {
         Child = {
            Strings = { "hello", "world" }
         }
      };

The second syntax is valid for readonly properties. If you change the code to initialise the Child and Strings properties in the respective constructors, the syntax works.

class Parent
{
    public Parent()
    {
        Child = new Child();
    }

    public Child Child { get; private set; }
}

class Child
{
    public Child()
    {
        Strings = new List<string>();
    }
    public List<string> Strings { get; private set; }
}

static class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // works fine now
        var parent = new Parent
        {
            Child =
            {
                Strings = { "hello", "world" }
            }
        };

    }
}

It's not broken syntax, it's you who uses an object initializer on a property that's simply not instantiated. What you wrote can be expanded to

var parent = new Parent();
parent.Child.Strings = new List<string> { "hello", "world" };

Which throws the NullReferenceException: you're trying to assign the property Strings contained by the property Child while Child is still null. Using a constructor to instantiate Child first, takes care of this.

There is nothing wrong with the initialisation, but it's trying to initialise objects that doesn't exist.

If the classes have constructors that create the objects, the initialisation works:

class Parent {
  public Child Child { get; set; }
  public Parent() {
    Child = new Child();
  }
}

class Child {
  public List<string> Strings { get; set; }
  public Child() {
    Strings = new List<string>();
  }
}

GSerg

You seem to misunderstand what the collection initializer does.

It is a mere syntactic sugar that converts the list in the braces into a series of calls to Add() method that must be defined on the collection object being initialized.
Your = { "hello", "world" } is therefore has the same effect as

.Add("hello");
.Add("world");

Obviously this will fail with a NullReferenceException if the collection is not created.

Referencing a null can`t always be checked for at compile time. Although the compiler sometimes warns of using a variable before it has been assigned. The compiler works correctly. This is a run-time error.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32342188/initializing-list-property-without-new-list-causes-nullreferenceexception

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nullreferenceexception