Is there such a thing as a chained NULL check?

Question

I have the following ugly code:

if (msg == null || 
    msg.Content == null || 
    msg.Content.AccountMarketMessage == null || 
    msg.Content.AccountMarketMessage.Account == null ||
    msg.Content.AccountMarketMessage.Account.sObject == null) return;

Is there a way to chain check for null values in C#, so that I don't have to check each individual level?

Answer 1

One of the proposals in C# 6 would be to add a new Null Propogation operator.

This will (hopefully) allow you to write:

var obj = msg?.Content?.AccountMarketMessage?.Account?.sObject;
if (obj == null) return;

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the language at this point that handles this.

Answer 2

There is not currently such a thing, but it may be coming to .NET very soon. There is a well-known User Voice thread on the subject. And as noted in this article, the Visual Studio team has recently announced that:

We are seriously considering this feature for C# and VB, and will be prototyping it in coming months.

Edit: and as noted in Reed Copsey's answer above, it is now a planned addition for C# 6. There are better details on the Codeplex pages he linked.