C# elegant way to check if a property's property is null

Question

In C#, say that you want to pull a value off of PropertyC in this example and ObjectA, PropertyA and PropertyB can all be null.

ObjectA.PropertyA.PropertyB.PropertyC

How can I get PropertyC safely with the least amount of code?

Right now I would check:

if(ObjectA != null && ObjectA.PropertyA !=null && ObjectA.PropertyA.PropertyB != null) {     // safely pull off the value     int value = objectA.PropertyA.PropertyB.PropertyC; } 

It would be nice to do something more like this (pseudo-code).

int value = ObjectA.PropertyA.PropertyB ? ObjectA.PropertyA.PropertyB : defaultVal; 

Possibly even further collapsed with a null-coalescing operator.

EDIT Originally I said my second example was like js, but I changed it to psuedo-code since it was correctly pointed out that it would not work in js.

Answer 1

In C# 6 you can use the Null Conditional Operator. So the original test will be:

int? value = objectA?.PropertyA?.PropertyB?.PropertyC; 

Answer 2

Short Extension Method:

public static TResult IfNotNull<TInput, TResult>(this TInput o, Func<TInput, TResult> evaluator)   where TResult : class where TInput : class {   if (o == null) return null;   return evaluator(o); } 

Using

PropertyC value = ObjectA.IfNotNull(x => x.PropertyA).IfNotNull(x => x.PropertyB).IfNotNull(x => x.PropertyC); 

This simple extension method and much more you can find on http://devtalk.net/csharp/chained-null-checks-and-the-maybe-monad/

EDIT:

After using it for moment I think the proper name for this method should be IfNotNull() instead of original With().