Question

I’m attempting to dump variable property information to a simple string but when it gets to my nullable bools, the as string always returns null –even if the actual value is true | false!

StringBuilder propertyDump = new StringBuilder();

foreach(PropertyInfo property in typeof(MyClass).GetProperties())
{
    propertyDump.Append(property.Name)
                .Append(":")
                .Append(property.GetValue(myClassInstance, null) as string);
}

return propertyDump.ToString();

No exceptions are thrown; quick and the output is exactly what I want except any properties that are bool? are always false. If I quick watch and do .ToString() it works! But I can’t guarantee other properties are not, in fact, null.

Can anyone explain why this is? and even better, a workaround?

Answer 1

The as operator returns a casted value if the instance is of that exact type, or null otherwise.

Instead, you just should .Append(property.GetValue(...)); Append() will automatically handle nulls and conversions.