Question

I have a class property that is a list of strings, List.
Sometimes this property is null or if it has been set but the list is empty then count is 0.
However elsewhere in my code I need to check whether this property is set, so currently my code check whether it’s null and count is 0 which seems messy.

if(objectA.folders is null)
{
    if(objectA.folders.count == 0)
    {
      // do something
    }
}

Any recommendation on how this should be handled?
Maybe I should always initialise the property so that it’s never null?

Answer 1

When I have List as a property, I usually have something that looks like the following (this is not a thread safe piece of code):

public class SomeObject
{
    private List<string> _myList = null;

    public List<string> MyList
    {
        get
        {
            if(_myList == null)
                _myList = new List<string>();
            return _myList;
        }
    }
}

Your code would then never have to check for null because the Property would be initialized if used. You would then only have to check for the Count.