Can assignment be used with null conditional operators? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by slardiaardvark@programming.dev to c/csharp@programming.dev

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With regards to null conditional operators, calling properties and methods will work fine, e.g.:

HttpContext.Current?.Response.Clear();

But I'm wondering if assignment is possible? I get this error when trying to do this:

HttpContext.Current?.Response.ContentType = "text/json";

The docs say:

The null-conditional operators are short-circuiting. That is, if one operation in a chain of conditional member or element access operations returns null, the rest of the chain doesn't execute.

So wondering if it's possible and I'm doing it wrong, or am I taking "does not execute" too literally? :)

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[-] Lmaydev@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What it does essentially is a null check and jump after each member.

So what you would end up with is null = ... As the result of the expression (chain) is what is being assigned to. The assignment is an expression its self that takes two expressions. One to be assigned to and the value to assign.

Which obviously is always going to be an error.