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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

safe navigation operator en · NOUN

Meanings

  1. A binary operator that returns its second argument, unless the first argument is null, in which case it returns null; used to simplify code that would otherwise need multiple explicit checks for nullity.
    • C# 6 introduced a cascading nulls operator, also called the null-conditional operator and the safe navigation operator. 2017, Gary McLean Hall, Adaptive Code: Agile coding with design patterns and SOLID principles:
    • The safe navigation operator (?.) provides navigation on the nested properties without getting any exception when a null value is evaluated from any of the properties iterated. 2015, Mert Caliskan, Kenan Sevindik, Beginning Spring, page 278:
    • One operator I haven't talked about yet is the safe navigation operator (?.). By preceding a dot with a question mark, you can safely navigate to methods or properties of an object even if that object is null. 2009, Bashar Jawad, Groovy and Grails Recipes, page 57:

Forms

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safe navigation operators Number=Plur lexicographic