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Well done min!
Now the hard part, the do you don't you decision part!
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Congratulations!
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep!
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: "Senior Implementation Consultant"
What is the translation of this one? “Senior Code-Monkey”?
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet!
Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Congrats, I guess you'll have to get used to Cork Gin, but shouldn't be to bad I hope.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
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Congrats, hope it works out in your favor!
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If it moves, compile it
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I am testing several depths of properties in an object to make sure they are safe before I call them:
Test.NotNull(myObject);
if (myObject != null)
{
Test.NotNull(myObject.MyProperty);
if (myObject.MyProperty != null)
Test.IsPositive(myObject.MyProperty.Id);
...
}
I was thinking it would be really cool to be able to do
Test.NotNull(myObject).NotNull(myObject.MyProperty).IsPositive(myObject.MyProperty.Id);
but obviously if myObject == null then we have a runtime null ref error because, regardless of what the NotNull method returns as part of the chaining, myObject is still null.
So this got me thinking: You can do
if (myObject != null && myObject.MyProperty != null)
because of short circuit boolean evaluation in C#, but I was wondering, with my fairly mainstream experience in languages, if there are languages out there that would allow chaining of methods with short circuit evaluation.
Essentially you'd have to have the input parameter be resolved after the method was called in order to have the method be able to say "I don't need the input parameter, please just ignore it".
Has anyone heard of this? Would it open up a World Of Pain when it comes to debugging? Would it be useful? Am I procrastinating?
---
Update: and it turns out this leads into a great discussion of extension methods. See
The Maybe Monad[^] and Chained null checks and the Maybe monad[^] for two ways of achieving this. Once you've done that, debate the correctness of extension methods that are able by design to operate on a null references.
I will be over there looking for new, shiny, distracting things.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
modified 10 Jan '13 - 16:48.
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No Programming Questions in the lounge.
I am going to have to report you to yourself.
Please give yourself a good dressing down and wag an admonishing finger at yourself!
---------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
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I would if it were a programming question.
And, regardless of the attempt at humour, I am sad, deeply sad, that it was you who jumped on the "no programming questions" bandwagon.
So I'm going to jump on my soapbox because it's a fantastic way to procrastinate further, and bemoan the lack of interesting technical discussion on the lounge where bad jokes and political rhetoric seem to be more accepted than discussion on the topics that we as developers hold dearest to our hearts.
For shame, David. For shame.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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If voting was available, I would of shot you a 5, but alas.....
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Norm .net wrote: If voting was available, I would of shot you a 5, but alas.....
Seconded.
CPallini wrote: You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him.
:Smile:
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You could just toss a in place of a 5 vote.
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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Aye
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Do Not Procrastinate Today!
Wait until tomorrow and have a whole day of it.
Until then, stare at this picture[^] of a cat.
---------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
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Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Use ON ERROR RESUME!
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Chris Maunder wrote: Am I procrastinating?
Yes.
Nihil obstat
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For years I wished for something like
Flibber f = Bugger?.GetGoodShoboil()?.Libbl;
to evaluate to null silently if either Bugger is or GetGoodShoboil Returns null.
I dimly remember last time I voiced this here, I was told to not want this by the disciples of the Occasionally Useful Suggestion Of Demeter[^], as well as an apparently unrelated Sir Or Madam Chris Munder who suggested to not add more garbage to this wonderful, sleek new thing called C#.
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I was drunk.
That suggestion is awesome and I recant.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: I was drunk.
You always say that
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He's always drunk.
---------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
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No. I always say that.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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You're always drunk!
---------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
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I may well be tonight.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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so who is really drunk here. was it me?
Jibesh V P
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Chris Maunder wrote: Am I procrastinating?
I think this would get my vote...
Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder
Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow.
You can't scare me, I have children.
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Or a decorator, preferably combined with the NullObject-pattern
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System.DBNull is an example of the pattern. And I can't describe in words how much I dislike it.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
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Yes my vote for extension methods
Ranjan.D
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Interesting.
Today, you'd have to wrap it in a Try/Catch and eat the null reference exception if thrown.
But, if you could do this, you would have to be able to tell the compiler you don't want the exception thrown and to just continue with the next statement.
Hell, they added async/await keywords, why not add another one?
I'm kind of thinking that this would complicate debugging a bit too.
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The null object pattern.
public class Customer{}
public class NullCustomer : Customer{}
Then instead of assigning a customer reference to null you assign it to the null customer, etc. Then you can do all of your work without null checks. There are some instances where this works really, really, well. However, if you are chaining functions it is probably some sort of workflow so there maybe another solution that issue.
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There is a way that you could do this, but it would be much more trouble than it was worth, and it would definitely open up a whole world of hurt. Effectively, what would need to be implemented is an IL rewriter to manage and rewrite the chain internally. Then you could create a fluid interface that would need to be recognised as the item that needs rewriting.
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I respect a man who prefers power drills and small explosives where others would wimp out and use tweezers.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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When I get the chance, I may just have a go at it. Need some free time first.
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Not very elegant, even if you could. Nice to get all clever (over engineering is, surely, an anti-pattern) with code but sometime in the future some poor sap will have to maintain what you have put together so keep it simple and verbose.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
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I've heard of chaining programs and subprograms - using hpl on the HP 9825, for instance - but short circuit evaluation was never considered.
Having never optimized a program for multi-processor environments, I have no idea how to do this, but you could launch a separate process for each of your levels of test, then cancel all if any one of them fails. It might not be useful, but it would certainly give the grunts whose job it is to debug things something interesting to do.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Out of curiosity, what would you do in the else section of such a call?
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Else? There is no else.
Just blindly plow on!
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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There are a few ways you could do this, but one thing I've been meaning to write a tip/trick on (as soon as I figure out how it can be done) is the expression tree approach. You'd do this:
var result = SafeChain(A.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k);
The parameter would be passed as an expression tree, which would then be evaluated in steps, making sure to check for nulls along the way. The first null would cause null to be returned, otherwise the result value would be returned. I imagine you could use the same approach with your method chaining / expression trees.
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Actually to be passed as an expresion tree you'd have to write:
var result = SafeChain(() =>A.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k);
But I agree that this is the way to do it.
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In C# you can implement this k<ind of chaining using extension methods and expressions trees. The extension method (somewhat combined version of the two above):
public static U NotNull<T, U>(this T myObject, Expression<Func<U>> expression)
where U : class
{
if (myObject == null)
return null;
else
{
var func = expression.Compile();
return func();
}
}
Usage (returns either null if there's a null in the chain, or the value of MySubProperty, with almost the same syntax as above):
var value = myObject.NotNull(() => myObject.MyProperty).NotNull(() => myProperty.MySubProperty);
The only downside I found that in this case you have to declare a variable of type MyProperty for use in the second lambda expression. Maybe there's a way around it, but I didn't manage to find one as of yet. That can be changed though if the input remains myObject and the expression consists of the full path i. e. () => myObject.MyProperty.MySubProperty.
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I figured out something that works. See my message below. It is based off of yours, with an extra parameter for the expression.
Bob Dole The internet is a great way to get on the net.
 2.0.82.7292 SP6a
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Chris Maunder wrote: Am I procrastinating?
Yep! But then, you probably don't want to fix RootAdmin - it's down according to http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/rootadmin.com[^]
If you get an email telling you that you can catch Swine Flu from tinned pork then just delete it. It's Spam.
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Maybe this IS the fix for the site.
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public static U NotNull<T, U>(this T myObject, Expression<Func<T, U>> expression) where U : class
{
if (myObject == null)
{
return null;
}
try
{
var func = expression.Compile();
return func(myObject);
}
catch (Exception)
{
return null;
}
}
Based off of a suggestion above.
I tested this, and it seems to work.
Bob Dole The internet is a great way to get on the net.
 2.0.82.7292 SP6a
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If only there was some sort of site where people could write articles on exactly this issue[^]!
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Yes!
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That settles it for me, I want voting back.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
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