An expression tree lambda may not contain a null propagating operator

Question

The example you were quoting from uses LINQ to Objects, where the implicit lambda expressions in the query are converted into delegates... whereas you're using EF or similar, with IQueryable<T> queryies, where the lambda expressions are converted into expression trees. Expression trees don't support the null conditional operator (or tuples).

Just do it the old way:

price = co == null ? 0 : (co.price ?? 0)

(I believe the null-coalescing operator is fine in an expression tree.)

The code you link to uses List<T>. List<T> implements IEnumerable<T> but not IQueryable<T>. In that case, the projection is executed in memory and ?. works.

You're using some IQueryable<T>, which works very differently. For IQueryable<T>, a representation of the projection is created, and your LINQ provider decides what to do with it at runtime. For backwards compatibility reasons, ?. cannot be used here.

Depending on your LINQ provider, you may be able to use plain . and still not get any NullReferenceException.

While expression tree does not support the C# 6.0 null propagating, what we can do is create a visitor that modify expression tree for safe null propagation, just like the operator does!

Here is mine:

public class NullPropagationVisitor : ExpressionVisitor
{
    private readonly bool _recursive;

    public NullPropagationVisitor(bool recursive)
    {
        _recursive = recursive;
    }

    protected override Expression VisitUnary(UnaryExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        if (propertyAccess.Operand is MemberExpression mem)
            return VisitMember(mem);

        if (propertyAccess.Operand is MethodCallExpression met)
            return VisitMethodCall(met);

        if (propertyAccess.Operand is ConditionalExpression cond)
            return Expression.Condition(
                    test: cond.Test,
                    ifTrue: MakeNullable(Visit(cond.IfTrue)),
                    ifFalse: MakeNullable(Visit(cond.IfFalse)));

        return base.VisitUnary(propertyAccess);
    }

    protected override Expression VisitMember(MemberExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        return Common(propertyAccess.Expression, propertyAccess);
    }

    protected override Expression VisitMethodCall(MethodCallExpression propertyAccess)
    {
        if (propertyAccess.Object == null)
            return base.VisitMethodCall(propertyAccess);

        return Common(propertyAccess.Object, propertyAccess);
    }

    private BlockExpression Common(Expression instance, Expression propertyAccess)
    {
        var safe = _recursive ? base.Visit(instance) : instance;
        var caller = Expression.Variable(safe.Type, "caller");
        var assign = Expression.Assign(caller, safe);
        var acess = MakeNullable(new ExpressionReplacer(instance,
            IsNullableStruct(instance) ? caller : RemoveNullable(caller)).Visit(propertyAccess));
        var ternary = Expression.Condition(
                    test: Expression.Equal(caller, Expression.Constant(null)),
                    ifTrue: Expression.Constant(null, acess.Type),
                    ifFalse: acess);

        return Expression.Block(
            type: acess.Type,
            variables: new[]
            {
                caller,
            },
            expressions: new Expression[]
            {
                assign,
                ternary,
            });
    }

    private static Expression MakeNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        if (IsNullable(ex))
            return ex;

        return Expression.Convert(ex, typeof(Nullable<>).MakeGenericType(ex.Type));
    }

    private static bool IsNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        return !ex.Type.IsValueType || (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(ex.Type) != null);
    }

    private static bool IsNullableStruct(Expression ex)
    {
        return ex.Type.IsValueType && (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(ex.Type) != null);
    }

    private static Expression RemoveNullable(Expression ex)
    {
        if (IsNullableStruct(ex))
            return Expression.Convert(ex, ex.Type.GenericTypeArguments[0]);

        return ex;
    }

    private class ExpressionReplacer : ExpressionVisitor
    {
        private readonly Expression _oldEx;
        private readonly Expression _newEx;

        internal ExpressionReplacer(Expression oldEx, Expression newEx)
        {
            _oldEx = oldEx;
            _newEx = newEx;
        }

        public override Expression Visit(Expression node)
        {
            if (node == _oldEx)
                return _newEx;

            return base.Visit(node);
        }
    }
}

It passes on the following tests:

private static string Foo(string s) => s;

static void Main(string[] _)
{
    var visitor = new NullPropagationVisitor(recursive: true);

    Test1();
    Test2();
    Test3();

    void Test1()
    {
        Expression<Func<string, char?>> f = s => s == "foo" ? 'X' : Foo(s).Length.ToString()[0];

        var fBody = (Expression<Func<string, char?>>)visitor.Visit(f);

        var fFunc = fBody.Compile();

        Debug.Assert(fFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(fFunc("bar") == '3');
        Debug.Assert(fFunc("foo") == 'X');
    }

    void Test2()
    {
        Expression<Func<string, int>> y = s => s.Length;

        var yBody = visitor.Visit(y.Body);
        var yFunc = Expression.Lambda<Func<string, int?>>(
                                    body: yBody,
                                    parameters: y.Parameters)
                            .Compile();

        Debug.Assert(yFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(yFunc("bar") == 3);
    }

    void Test3()
    {
        Expression<Func<char?, string>> y = s => s.Value.ToString()[0].ToString();

        var yBody = visitor.Visit(y.Body);
        var yFunc = Expression.Lambda<Func<char?, string>>(
                                    body: yBody,
                                    parameters: y.Parameters)
                            .Compile();

        Debug.Assert(yFunc(null) == null);
        Debug.Assert(yFunc('A') == "A");
    }
}

Jon Skeet's answer was right, in my case I was using DateTime for my Entity class. When I tried to use like

(a.DateProperty == null ? default : a.DateProperty.Date)

I had the error

Property 'System.DateTime Date' is not defined for type 'System.Nullable`1[System.DateTime]' (Parameter 'property')

So I needed to change DateTime? for my entity class and

(a.DateProperty == null ? default : a.DateProperty.Value.Date)