Passing a `Nullable<T>` as a Type parameter to a C# function

Question

This is within a .NET Core 1.1.4 project, so please take this into consideration.

I'm trying to create a function that would verify if a value can be assigned to a type, but I'm encountering an issue with Nullable<T> types.

My function:

    protected void CheckIsAssignable(Object value, Type destinationType)
    {
        if (value == null)
        {
            // Nullable.GetUnderlyingType returns null for non-nullable types.
            if (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(destinationType) == null)
            {
                var message =
                    String.Format(
                        "Property Type mismatch. Tried to assign null to type {0}",
                        destinationType.FullName
                    );
                throw new TargetException(message);
            }
        }
        else
        {
            // If destinationType is nullable, we want to determine if
            // the underlying type can store the value.
            if (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(destinationType) != null)
            {
                // Remove the Nullable<T> wrapper
                destinationType = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(destinationType);
            }
            // We can now verify assignability with a non-null value.
            if (!destinationType.GetTypeInfo().IsAssignableFrom(value.GetType()))
            {
                var message =
                    String.Format(
                        "Tried to assign {0} of type {1} to type {2}",
                        value,
                        value.GetType().FullName,
                        destinationType.FullName
                    );
                throw new TargetException(message);
            }
        }
    }

The if clause above handles the case if value is null, and attempts to verify that the destinationType is Nullable<T>; the else clause handles if value actually contains something, so it attempts to determine if you can assign it to destinationType or, if it's a Nullable<T>, that it's assignable to T.

The problem is that Nullable<T> isn't a Type, so calling CheckIfAssignable(3, Nullable<Int32>) doesn't match the function signature.

Changing the signature to:

protected void CheckIsAssignable(Object value, ValueType destinationType)

lets me pass a Nullable<T>, but then I can't submit it as an argument to Nullable.GetUnderlyingType.

I'm not sure if I've over-complicated the issue with this, but I feel there is a simple solution that I'm just not seeing.

Answer 1

You are not passing the type itself there. You need to use the typeof() command like so:

CheckIfAssignable(3, typeof(Nullable<Int32>))