you're out of luck then, for most programmers it does 🙂

can you than give some examples when continue the chain with null make sens?

Your toString example from earlier.

you can solve this with

a?.b.toString().length ?: null.toString()

There's nothing to solve, that's just how toString works.

So, no use cases, just mine invented 😞 This feature was not designed well

I think a better example will be

a?.b.c.d

a?.b

can be non-null, but how can you be sure

b.c

is also non-null? Think using a general case will make more sense.

besides

toString()

here's something from code I've seen in production (dumbed down for brevity)

fun prepareNextActionCommand(input: ParamsObject): Command {
    fun null.toCommand() = DefaultActionCommand()
    return input.action.toCommand().apply { /* stuff */ }
}

@Czar you can solve this by adding

?: null.toCommand()

nope, I can't, because you're proposing to break chain on

null

, so if your version is accepted,

null.toCommand()

will not execute

toCommand()

and will instead return

null

?:

doesn't mean if left is null execute right?

Yes it does

then if left will be reduced to null the

null.toCommand()

will be executed, as needed

I don't see how

null.toString()

won't be executed and

null.toCommand()

will 😄

they both will be executed if they are at right at

?:

oh, so not only you're proposing hidden chain-break, you're also saying that this chain-break should not occur in expression if it is to the right of

?:

Too much non-obvious behaviour in my opinion.

it is not hidden, you know it will break at first null it always break at first null and reduce to null so

a?.b.toString()

will be reduced to

null

and we will have

null ?: null.toString()

?:

operator changing how method chaining works does not make sense to me personally