While browsing the MSDN documentations on Equals overrides, one point grabbed my attention.
On the examples of this specific page, some null checks are made, and the objects are casted to the System.Object type when doing the comparison :
public override bool Equals(System.Object obj)
{
// If parameter is null return false.
if (obj == null)
{
return false;
}
// If parameter cannot be cast to Point return false.
TwoDPoint p = obj as TwoDPoint;
if ((System.Object)p == null)
{
return false;
}
// Return true if the fields match:
return (x == p.x) && (y == p.y);
}
Is there a specific reason to use this cast, or is it just some "useless" code forgotten in this example ?
It is possible for a type to overload the == operator. The cast to object ensures that the original definition is used.
As others said, the type might override the == operator. Therefore, casting to Objectis equivalent to if (Object.ReferenceEquals(p, null)) { ... }.
I believe casting to System.Object would get you around any operator overloading that TwoDPoint might have.
It likely exists to avoid confusion with an overloaded == operator. Imagine if the cast did not exist and the == operator was overloaded. Now the p == null line would potentially bind to the operator ==. Many implementations of operator == simply defer to the overridden Equals method. This could easily cause a stack overflow situation
public static bool operator==(TwoDPoint left, TwoDPoint right) {
return left.Equals(right);
}
public override bool Equals(System.Object obj) {
...
TwoDPoint p = obj as TwoDPoint;
if ( p == null ) { // Stack overflow!!!
return false;
}
...
}
By casting to Object the author ensures a simple reference check for null will occur (which is what is intended).
This might have been part of a larger sample where the == operator was overloaded. In that case, using obj == null could have resulted in StackOverflow if TwoDPoint.Equals(object) was invoked as part of the == definition.
Related
In the following C# snippet I override the == method. _type is a number of type short. So I'm actually saying that two WorkUnitTypes are the same when those two shorts are the same.
public static bool operator ==(WorkUnitType type1, WorkUnitType type2)
{
if (type1 == null || type2 == null)
return false;
return type1._type == type2._type;
}
Because R# warns me, and it is totally clear why, that type1/type2 could potentially be null I'm trying to catch that with the if statement above.
Now I'm getting a StackOverflowException which makes totally sense because I'm actually calling the override.
Question: How do I write this method "correct". How can I catch the case that type1 or type2 can be null?
My best guess: Maybe I'm just misusing == here and checking for equality should be done with the Equals override. But still I think the problem exists. So where is my error in reasoning?
You're looking for the ReferenceEquals() function, which will compare directly, bypassing your operator overload.
In addition to what SLaks said, you likely also want to return true if both are equal to null. So, like this:
public static bool operator ==(WorkUnitType type1, WorkUnitType type2)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(type1, null))
return ReferenceEquals(type2, null);
if (ReferenceEquals(type2, null))
return false;
return type1._type == type2._type;
}
For completeness' sake: you can also cast the two arguments to object. This will use the implementation as defined in object and not your custom one.
In code:
if ((object) type1 == null || (object) type2 == null)
What should IEquatable<T>.Equals(T obj) do when this == null and obj == null?
1) This code is generated by F# compiler when implementing IEquatable<T>. You can see that it returns true when both objects are null:
public sealed override bool Equals(T obj)
{
if (this == null)
{
return obj == null;
}
if (obj == null)
{
return false;
}
// Code when both this and obj are not null.
}
2) Similar code can be found in the question "in IEquatable implementation is reference check necessary" or in the question "Is there a complete IEquatable implementation reference?". This code returns false when both objects are null.
public sealed override bool Equals(T obj)
{
if (obj == null)
{
return false;
}
// Code when obj is not null.
}
3) The last option is to say that the behaviour of the method is not defined when this == null.
leppie is right. Just to elaborate on his answer (and confirm his suspicion that F# doesn't guarantee this != null): discriminated unions may be marked with the attribute [<CompilationRepresentation(CompilationRepresentationFlags.UseNullAsTrueValue)>] allowing cases to be represented by the value null. Option<'T> is such a type. The None case is represented by null at run-time. (None : option<int>).Equals(None) is syntactically valid. Here's a fun example:
[<CompilationRepresentation(CompilationRepresentationFlags.UseNullAsTrueValue)>]
type Maybe<'T> =
| Just of 'T
| Nothing
[<CompilationRepresentation(CompilationRepresentationFlags.Instance)>]
member this.ThisIsNull() = match this with Nothing -> true | _ -> false
Decompiling ThisIsNull with Reflector shows
public bool ThisIsNull()
{
return (this == null);
}
And the result:
Nothing.ThisIsNull() //true
The reason F# does this (I suspect) to optimize empty lists as null.
By adding this check, it allows one to call an instance method on a null instance without any problems.
See my blog post from a while back.
In C#, this is irrelevant.
To answer the question:
It should return true as both instances are null and deemed equal.
If this is null, the code can't be called, so that case needn't be considered (in C# anyway, there are cases where languages allow a null object to have a method dereferenced though obviously if it internally examines any of its non-existent fields it will error. Consider:
return x.Equals(y);
If x is null, we don't even get to call into Equals for the null check to count.
Hence we need only consider:
public bool Equals(T obj)
{
if(obj == null)
return false;
//logic defining equality here.
}
Where the possibility of both objects being null does come up, is when we are examining them from a static == operator override or from an IEqualityComparer<T> implementation:
public bool Equals(T x, T y)
{
if(x == null)
return y == null;
if(y == null)
return false;
//logic defining equality here.
}
Note that a useful shortcut here if equality can be lengthy to determine (e.g. comparing long strings), then we may take advantage of the fact that identity entails equality - that is something is always equal to itself, even Ayn Rand could figure that out ;) There are also algorithms that make comparing an item with itself quite common, making this shortcut well worth including. In this case the identity comparison already includes the check for both being null, so we leave it out again:
public bool Equals(T x, T y)
{
if(ReferenceEquals(x, y))
return true;
if(x == null || y == null)
return false;
//logic defining equality here.
}
For most methods I assume undefined behavior when called with this==null. That's because most programmers write their code under the assumption that this!=null, which is guaranteed by the C# specification if the calling code is written in C#.
That's why every sane caller of x.Equals(y) should either know for sure that that x is not null, or add a manual null check.
In most cases I wouldn't call Equals directly at all, but instead use EqualityComparer<T>.Default.
I would definitelly go with option 1:
if (this == null)
{
return obj == null;
}
if (obj == null)
{
return false;
}
null object always equals null object.
Sample code is in the MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms131190.aspx?ppud=4
If this==null you will get a runtime exception calling Equals() on that object.
This question already has answers here:
In the msdn guidance on Equals override, why the cast to object in the null check?
(3 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
Just reading the msdn article on overriding equality operators here
The following snippet confuses me...
// If parameter cannot be cast to Point return false.
TwoDPoint p = obj as TwoDPoint;
if ((System.Object)p == null) // <-- wtf?
{
return false;
}
Why is there a cast to Object here to perform the null comparison?
Operators apply through static analysis (and overloads), not virtual methods (overrides). With the cast, it is doing a reference equality check. Without the cast, it can run the TwoDPoint operator. I guess this is to avoid problems when an operator is added.
Personally, though, I'd do a reference check explicitly with ReferenceEquals.
No! if you don't do that, the runtime will start a recursive call to the equality operator you are just in which results in infinite recursion and, consequently, a stack overflow.
To force it to use the Equals method of Object rather than its own overloaded version... just a guess...
This is not useless. Without that cast the == operator being overloaded would be called recursively...
the below is the line that does the cast
TwoDPoint p = obj as TwoDPoint
the difference with the "normal" cast is that using "As" it doesn't raise an exception if the object is not "castable". In this case if "p" is not a TwoDPoint Type is not gonna raise an exception (cast not valid) but return null.
if ((System.Object)p == null) // <-- wtf?
{
return false;
}
this code check if the cast went fine if not p should be null for the reason above
Note that this is the VS 2005 documentation. I guess the folks who write the documentation also had the same question and couldn't come up with a good answer; the example was changed for VS 2008. Here is the current version:
public bool Equals(TwoDPoint p)
{
// If parameter is null, return false.
if (Object.ReferenceEquals(p, null))
{
return false;
}
// Optimization for a common success case.
if (Object.ReferenceEquals(this, p))
{
return true;
}
// If run-time types are not exactly the same, return false.
if (this.GetType() != p.GetType())
return false;
// Return true if the fields match.
// Note that the base class is not invoked because it is
// System.Object, which defines Equals as reference equality.
return (X == p.X) && (Y == p.Y);
}
I need to do a comparaison between an object and NULL. When the object is not NULL I fill it with some data.
Here is the code :
if (region != null)
{
....
}
This is working but when looping and looping sometime the region object is NOT null (I can see data inside it in debug mode). In step-by-step when debugging, it doesn't go inside the IF statement... When I do a Quick Watch with these following expression : I see the (region == null) return false, AND (region != null) return false too... why and how?
Update
Someone point out that the object was == and != overloaded:
public static bool operator ==(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, null))
{
return false;
}
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r2, null))
{
return false;
}
return (r1.Cmr.CompareTo(r2.Cmr) == 0 && r1.Id == r2.Id);
}
public static bool operator !=(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, null))
{
return false;
}
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r2, null))
{
return false;
}
return (r1.Cmr.CompareTo(r2.Cmr) != 0 || r1.Id != r2.Id);
}
Is the == and/or != operator overloaded for the region object's class?
Now that you've posted the code for the overloads:
The overloads should probably look like the following (code taken from postings made by Jon Skeet and Philip Rieck):
public static bool operator ==(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals( r1, r2)) {
// handles if both are null as well as object identity
return true;
}
if ((object)r1 == null || (object)r2 == null)
{
return false;
}
return (r1.Cmr.CompareTo(r2.Cmr) == 0 && r1.Id == r2.Id);
}
public static bool operator !=(Region r1, Region r2)
{
return !(r1 == r2);
}
Those operator overloads are broken.
Firstly, it makes life a lot easier if != is implemented by just calling == and inverting the result.
Secondly, before the nullity checks in == there should be:
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, r2))
{
return true;
}
Both of the overloads are incorrect
public static bool operator ==(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, null))
{
return false;
}
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r2, null))
{
return false;
}
return (r1.Cmr.CompareTo(r2.Cmr) == 0 && r1.Id == r2.Id);
}
if r1 And r2 are null, the first test (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, null)) will return false, even though r2 is also null.
try
//ifs expanded a bit for readability
public static bool operator ==(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if( (object)r1 == null && (object)r2 == null)
{
return true;
}
if( (object)r1 == null || (object)r2 == null)
{
return false;
}
//btw - a quick shortcut here is also object.ReferenceEquals(r1, r2)
return (r1.Cmr.CompareTo(r2.Cmr) == 0 && r1.Id == r2.Id);
}
This can sometimes happen when you have multiple threads working with the same data. If this is the case, you can use a lock to prevent them from messing with eachother.
For equality comparison of a type "T", overload these methods:
int GetHashCode() //Overrides Object.GetHashCode
bool Equals(object other) //Overrides Object.Equals; would correspond to IEquatable, if such an interface existed
bool Equals(T other) //Implements IEquatable<T>; do this for each T you want to compare to
static bool operator ==(T x, T y)
static bool operator !=(T x, T y)
Your type-specific comparison code should be done in one place: the type-safe IEquatable<T> interface method Equals(T other).
If you're comparing to another type (T2), implement IEquatable<T2> as well, and put the field comparison code for that type in Equals(T2 other).
All overloaded methods and operators should forward the equality comparison task to the main type-safe Equals(T other) instance method, such that an clean dependency hierarchy is maintained and stricter guarantees are introduced at each level to eliminate redundancy and unessential complexity.
bool Equals(object other)
{
if (other is T) //replicate this for each IEquatable<T2>, IEquatable<T3>, etc. you may implement
return Equals( (T)other) ); //forward to IEquatable<T> implementation
return false; //other is null or cannot be compared to this instance; therefore it is not equal
}
bool Equals(T other)
{
if ((object)other == null) //cast to object for reference equality comparison, or use object.ReferenceEquals
return false;
//if ((object)other == this) //possible performance boost, ONLY if object instance is frequently compared to itself! otherwise it's just an extra useless check
//return true;
return field1.Equals( other.field1 ) &&
field2.Equals( other.field2 ); //compare type fields to determine equality
}
public static bool operator ==( T x, T y )
{
if ((object)x != null) //cast to object for reference equality comparison, or use object.ReferenceEquals
return x.Equals( y ); //forward to type-safe Equals on non-null instance x
if ((object)y != null)
return false; //x was null, y is not null
return true; //both null
}
public static bool operator !=( T x, T y )
{
if ((object)x != null)
return !x.Equals( y ); //forward to type-safe Equals on non-null instance x
if ((object)y != null)
return true; //x was null, y is not null
return false; //both null
}
Discussion:
The preceding implementation centralizes the type-specific (i.e. field equality) comparison to the end of the IEquatable<T> implementation for the type.
The == and != operators have a parallel but opposite implementation. I prefer this over having one reference the other, such that there is an extra method call for the dependent one. If the != operator is simply going to call the == operator, rather than offer an equally performing operator, then you may as well just use !(obj1 == obj2) and avoid the extra method call.
The comparison-to-self is left out from the equals operator and the IEquatable<T> implementations, because it can introduce 1. unnecessary overhead in some cases, and/or 2. inconsistent performance depending on how often an instance is compared to itself vs other instances.
An alternative I don't like, but should mention, is to reverse this setup, centralizing the type-specific equality code in the equality operator instead and have the Equals methods depend on that. One could then use the shortcut of ReferenceEquals(obj1,obj2) to check for reference equality and null equality simultaneously as Philip mentioned in an earlier post, but that idea is misleading. It seems like you're killing two birds with one stone, but your actually creating more work -- after determining the objects are neither both null nor the same instance, you will then, in addition, STILL have to on to check whether each instance is null. In my implementation, you check for any single instance being null exactly once. By the time the Equals instance method is called, it's already ruled out that the first object being compared is null, so all that's left to do is check whether the other is null. So after at most two comparisons, we jump directly into the field checking, no matter which method we use (Equals(object),Equals(T),==,!=). Also, as I mentioned, if you really are comparing and object to itself the majority of the time, then you could add that check in the Equals method just before diving into the field comparisons. The point in adding it last is that you can still maintain the flow/dependency hierarchy without introducing a redundant/useless check at every level.
So is it that these checks here are not right:
public static bool operator !=(Region r1, Region r2)
{
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r1, null))
{
return false;
}
if (object.ReferenceEquals(r2, null))
{
return false;
}
...
There's another possibility that you need to click the refresh icon next to the parameter that you're watching. VS try to keep up with the performance while not evaluating every statement/parameter. Take a look to make sure, before you start making changes to places that's non relevant.
bool comp;
if (object.IsNullOrEmpty(r1))
{
comp = false;
}
if (object.IsNullOrEmpty(r2))
{
comp = false;
}
return comp;
This question already has answers here:
Closed 11 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
How do I check for nulls in an '==' operator overload without infinite recursion?
When I overload the == operator for objects I typically write something like this:
public static bool operator ==(MyObject uq1, MyObject uq2) {
if (((object)uq1 == null) || ((object)uq2 == null)) return false;
return uq1.Field1 == uq2.Field1 && uq1.Field2 == uq2.Field2;
}
If you don't down-cast to object the function recurses into itself but I have to wonder if there isn't a better way?
As Microsoft says,
A common error in overloads of
operator == is to use (a == b), (a ==
null), or (b == null) to check for
reference equality. This instead
results in a call to the overloaded
operator ==, causing an infinite loop.
Use ReferenceEquals or cast the type
to Object, to avoid the loop.
So use ReferenceEquals(a, null) || ReferenceEquals(b, null) is one possibility, but casting to object is just as good (is actually equivalent, I believe).
So yes, it seems there should be a better way, but the method you use is the one recommended.
However, as has been pointed out, you really SHOULD override Equals as well when overriding ==. With LINQ providers being written in different languages and doing expression resolution at runtime, who knows when you'll be bit by not doing it even if you own all the code yourself.
ReferenceEquals(object obj1, object obj2)
#neouser99: That's the right solution, however the part that is missed is that when overriding the equality operator (the operator ==) you should also override the Equals function and simply make the operator call the function. Not all .NET languages support operator overloading, hence the reason for overriding the Equals function.
if ((object)uq1 == null)
return ((object)uq2 == null)
else if ((object)uq2 == null)
return false;
else
//return normal comparison
This compares them as equal when both are null.
Just use Resharper to create you Equals & GetHashCode methods. It creates the most comprehensive code for this purpose.
Update
I didn't post it on purpose - I prefer people to use Resharper's function instead of copy-pasting, because the code changes from class to class. As for developing C# without Resharper - I don't understand how you live, man.
Anyway, here is the code for a simple class (Generated by Resharper 3.0, the older version - I have 4.0 at work, I don't currently remember if it creates identical code)
public class Foo : IEquatable<Foo>
{
public static bool operator !=(Foo foo1, Foo foo2)
{
return !Equals(foo1, foo2);
}
public static bool operator ==(Foo foo1, Foo foo2)
{
return Equals(foo1, foo2);
}
public bool Equals(Foo foo)
{
if (foo == null) return false;
return y == foo.y && x == foo.x;
}
public override bool Equals(object obj)
{
if (ReferenceEquals(this, obj)) return true;
return Equals(obj as Foo);
}
public override int GetHashCode()
{
return y + 29*x;
}
private int y;
private int x;
}
But why don't you create an object member function? It can certainly not be called on a Null reference, so you're sure the first argument is not Null.
Indeed, you lose the symmetricity of a binary operator, but still...
(note on Purfideas' answer: Null might equal Null if needed as a sentinel value of an array)
Also think of the semantics of your == function: sometimes you really want to be able to choose whether you test for
Identity (points to same object)
Value Equality
Equivalence ( e.g. 1.000001 is equivalent to .9999999 )
Follow the DB treatment:
null == <anything> is always false