Question

what is the best practice to overload == operator that compares two instances of the same class when it comes to null reference comparison?

MyObject o1 = null;
MyObject o2 = null;
if (o1 == o2) ... 


static bool operator == (MyClass o1, MyClass o2)
{
  // ooops! this way leads toward recursion with stackoverflow as the result
  if (o1 == null && o2 == null) 
    return true;   

  // it works!
  if (Equals(o1, null) && Equals(o2, null))
    return true;

  ... 
}

What is the best approach to handle null references in comparison ?

Answer 1

I’ve wondered if there is a “best approach”. Here’s how I do it:

static bool operator == (MyClass o1, MyClass o2)
{
  if(object.ReferenceEquals(o1, o2)) // This handles if they're both null
      return true;                   // or if it's the same object

  if(object.ReferenceEquals(o1, null))
      return false;

  if(object.ReferenceEquals(o2, null)) // Is this necessary? See Gabe's comment
       return false;

  return o1.Equals(o2);

}