My two cents

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, October 20, 2017 02:20:31 Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Friday, 20 October 2017 at 00:26:19 UTC, bauss wrote:
> > return foo ? foo : null;
> >
> > where
> >
> > return foo ?? null; would be so much easier.
>
> return getOr(foo, null);
>
> That's really easy to do generically with a function. I wouldn't
> object to the ?? syntax, but if it really is something you write
> all over the place, you could just write the function.
>
> > return foo ? foo.bar ? foo.bar.baz ? foo.bar.baz.something :
> > null;
> >
> > Which could just be:
> >
> > return foo?.bar?.baz?.something;
>
> In dom.d, since I use this kind of thing somewhat frequently, I
> wrote a function called `optionSelector` which returns a wrapper
> type that is never null on the outside, but propagates null
> through the members. So you can do
>
> foo.optionSelector("x").whatever.you.want.all.the.way.down
>
> and it handles null automatically.
>
>
> You can do that semi-generically too with a function if it is
> something you use really frequently.

For better or worse, solutions like this are the main reason that a number
of things folks ask for don't get added to the language. It's frequently the
case that what someone wants to do can already be done using the language
as-is; it just may not be as syntactically pleasing as what the person
wants, and they may not know D well enough yet to have come up with the
solution on their own.

- Jonathan M Davis