How useful is C#'s ?? operator?

Question

So I have been intrigued by the ?? operator, but have still been unable to use it. I usually think about it when I am doing something like:

var x = (someObje         


        

Answer 1

The most useful is when dealing with nullable types.

bool? whatabool;
//...
bool realBool = whatabool ?? false;

without ?? you would need to write the following, which is much more confusing.

bool realbool = false;
if (whatabool.HasValue)
    realbool = whatabool.Value;

I find this operator very useful for nullable types, but other than that I don't find myself using it very much. Definitely a cool shortcut.