Null or default comparison of generic argument in C#

To handle all types of T, including where T is a primitive type, you'll need to compile in both methods of comparison:

    T Get<T>(Func<T> createObject)
    {
        T obj = createObject();
        if (obj == null || obj.Equals(default(T)))
            return obj;

        // .. do a bunch of stuff
        return obj;
    }

Extension method based on accepted answer.

   public static bool IsDefault<T>(this T inObj)
   {
       return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(inObj, default);
   }

Usage:

   private bool SomeMethod(){
       var tValue = GetMyObject<MyObjectType>();
       if (tValue == null || tValue.IsDefault()) return false;
   }

Alternate with null to simplify:

   public static bool IsNullOrDefault<T>(this T inObj)
   {
       if (inObj == null) return true;
       return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(inObj, default);
   }

Usage:

   private bool SomeMethod(){
       var tValue = GetMyObject<MyObjectType>();
       if (tValue.IsNullOrDefault()) return false;
   }

There is going to be a problem here -

If you're going to allow this to work for any type, default(T) will always be null for reference types, and 0 (or struct full of 0) for value types.

This is probably not the behavior you're after, though. If you want this to work in a generic way, you probably need to use reflection to check the type of T, and handle value types different than reference types.

Alternatively, you could put an interface constraint on this, and the interface could provide a way to check against the default of the class/struct.

I think you probably need to split this logic into two parts and check for null first.

public static bool IsNullOrEmpty<T>(T value)
{
    if (IsNull(value))
    {
        return true;
    }
    if (value is string)
    {
        return string.IsNullOrEmpty(value as string);
    }
    return value.Equals(default(T));
}

public static bool IsNull<T>(T value)
{
    if (value is ValueType)
    {
        return false;
    }
    return null == (object)value;
}

In the IsNull method, we're relying on the fact that ValueType objects can't be null by definition so if value happens to be a class which derives from ValueType, we already know it's not null. On the other hand, if it's not a value type then we can just compare value cast to an object against null. We could avoid the check against ValueType by going straight to a cast to object, but that would mean that a value type would get boxed which is something we probably want to avoid since it implies that a new object is created on the heap.

In the IsNullOrEmpty method, we're checking for the special case of a string. For all other types, we're comparing the value (which already know is not null) against it's default value which for all reference types is null and for value types is usually some form of zero (if they're integral).

Using these methods, the following code behaves as you might expect:

class Program
{
    public class MyClass
    {
        public string MyString { get; set; }
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        int  i1 = 1;    Test("i1", i1); // False
        int  i2 = 0;    Test("i2", i2); // True
        int? i3 = 2;    Test("i3", i3); // False
        int? i4 = null; Test("i4", i4); // True

        Console.WriteLine();

        string s1 = "hello";      Test("s1", s1); // False
        string s2 = null;         Test("s2", s2); // True
        string s3 = string.Empty; Test("s3", s3); // True
        string s4 = "";           Test("s4", s4); // True

        Console.WriteLine();

        MyClass mc1 = new MyClass(); Test("mc1", mc1); // False
        MyClass mc2 = null;          Test("mc2", mc2); // True
    }

    public static void Test<T>(string fieldName, T field)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(fieldName + ": " + IsNullOrEmpty(field));
    }

    // public static bool IsNullOrEmpty<T>(T value) ...

    // public static bool IsNull<T>(T value) ...
}

I use:

public class MyClass<T>
{
  private bool IsNull() 
  {
    var nullable = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(typeof(T)) != null;
    return nullable ? EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(Value, default(T)) : false;
  }
}

Just a hacky answer and as a reminder for myself. But I find this quite helpful for my project. The reason I write it like this is that because I don't want default integer 0 being marked as null if the value is 0

private static int o;
public static void Main()
{
    //output: IsNull = False -> IsDefault = True
    Console.WriteLine( "IsNull = " + IsNull( o ) + " -> IsDefault = " + IsDefault(o)); 
}

public static bool IsNull<T>(T paramValue)
{
  if( string.IsNullOrEmpty(paramValue + "" ))
    return true;
  return false;
}

public static bool IsDefault<T>(T val)
{
  return EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(val, default(T));
}

Don't know if this works with your requirements or not, but you could constrain T to be a Type that implements an interface such as IComparable and then use the ComparesTo() method from that interface (which IIRC supports/handles nulls) like this:

public void MyMethod<T>(T myArgument) where T : IComparable
...
if (0 == myArgument.ComparesTo(default(T)))

There are probably other interfaces that you could use as well IEquitable, etc.

@ilitirit:

public class Class<T> where T : IComparable
{
    public T Value { get; set; }
    public void MyMethod(T val)
    {
        if (Value == val)
            return;
    }
}

Operator '==' cannot be applied to operands of type 'T' and 'T'

I can't think of a way to do this without the explicit null test followed by invoking the Equals method or object.Equals as suggested above.

You can devise a solution using System.Comparison but really that's going to end up with way more lines of code and increase complexity substantially.

I think you were close.

if (myArgument.Equals(default(T)))

Now this compiles, but will fail if myArgument is null, which is part of what I'm testing for. I can add an explicit null check like this:

You just need to reverse the object on which the equals is being called for an elegant null-safe approach.

default(T).Equals(myArgument);