.NET/C#/VB.NET – Default value for generics (via: Stack Overflow)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/02/05
Looking for the pesky little differences between C# and VB.NET, I stumbled over this nice question by Micah Martin on default values for generics in VB.NET as compared to C#. Actually there were 3 questions, so I did a bit of post-editing:
How do I create the default for a generic in VB.NET? in C# I can call:
T variable = default(T);
- How do I do this in VB?
- If this just returns null (C#) or nothing (VB.NET) then what happens to value types?
- Is there a way to specify for a custom type what the default value is? For instance what if I want the default value to be the equivalent to calling a parameterless constructor on my class.
User Konrad Rudolph – Stack Overflow. promptly gave three answers:
Question 1:
Dim variable As T‘ or ‘Dim variable As T = Nothing‘ or ‘Dim variable As New T()Notice that the latter only works if you specifiy either theNewor theStructureconstraint for the generic type.Question 2:
For value types all members of the struct are “nulled” out, i.e. all reference type members are set to
null(Nothing) and all value types are in turn nulled out. And no, sincestringis a reference type, it does not result in""for strings as suggested in the other answer.Question 3:
No, there’s no way to specify this. There are some threads about this on Stack Overflow already, e.g. here. Jon has posted an excellent explanation why this is.
–jeroen
via: c# – Default value for generics – Stack Overflow.
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