??= Operator

[chuck-flowers]

I apologize if this has already been addressed but I could not find any issue dealing with it. I have found myself wanting this operator more and more recently.

A few years ago in C# we had to write this

if(foo == null)
   foo = new Foo();

Now we can write

foo = foo ?? new Foo();

But it can still get very lengthy with longer descriptive variable and type names

aDescriptiveFooVarName = aDescriptiveFooVarName ?? new DescriptiveFooClass();

What I would like is a compound assignment operator that can be used like so

aDescriptiveFooVarName ??= new DescriptiveFooClass();

I feel like it more concisely conveys intent and that it is a common enough pattern it's deserving of a language feature. If this is considered an antipattern of some sort with a better solution, please feel free to let me know because I'm getting tired of typing the same variable names back to back like this.

[cpplearner]

duplicate of #34 ?

[jnm2]

Yes, this is a dupe.

[jnm2]

Great minds think alike, and sometimes so do ours.

(However, great minds use search engines. 😉)

[chuck-flowers]

I must not have been searching with the right words. Either way I'll check out #34.

[jnm2]

@chuck-flowers Oh, it happens to me too. Just did the same thing myself. 😳