Useful extension method for the object type…

  • Article

Here’s a useful extension method for the object type:

 /// <summary>
/// Extends object to have a ValidateArgumentNotNull method.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Validates that an object is not null. If the object is null,
/// ArgumentNullException will be thrown.
/// </remarks>
/// <param name="value">The object being extended.</param>
/// <param name="argumentmName">The argument name.</param>
public static void ValidateArgumentNotNull(this object value, string argumentmName)
{
    if (value == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException(argumentmName);
    }
}

A little piece of syntactic sugar to turn N lines of boilerplate code like this:

 if (foo == null)
{
    throw new ArgumentNullException("foo");
}

if (bar == null)
{
    throw new ArgumentNullException("bar");
}

if (foobar == null)
{
    throw new ArgumentNullException("foobar");
}

Into something tighter, that you (sort of) just IntelliSense through:

 foo.ValidateArgumentNotNull("foo");
bar.ValidateArgumentNotNull("bar");
foobar.ValidateArgumentNotNull("foobar");

I want to know if I can find the parameter name out through reflection, so I don’t have to pass it in.  That would be the ultimate in tightness.

Best,

Brian