Is there a shorthand for smaller than AND greater than, in C#?

Question

Is there a shorthand for this:

bool b = (x > 0) && (x < 5);

Something like:

bool b = 0 < x < 5;

In C#?

Softball

Nope; you'll just have to do bool b = 0 < x && x < 5; – Tallman

Would writing an extension method help? – Summersault

@Summersault Using an extension method is going to add more than 4 characters at the call site (and adding " && " only adds 4 characters). – Tallman

Its the shothand actually. One more thing you can have in C# Enumerable.Range(1,4).Contains(x) – Gaillardia

@Gaillardia I wouldn't recommend an O(N) solution to an O(1) problem... – Tallman

@Shaharyar, x can be float – Alisha

Agree with the flaws in this. I just meant to provide another way to achieve it. Its not the best way that's why I commented rather than the answer. – Gaillardia

Answer 1

Latest C# Allow this pattern:

    var counter = Random.Shared.Next(0,5);
    if (counter is > 0 and < 5)
    {
      //Do logic
    }

Haematothermal

Answer 2

Nope. But you can remove brackets:

bool b = 0 < x && x < 5

or play with math:

bool b = x*x < 5*x

Alisha

Plus one: I love the second one. But, it might overflow the type (or wrap around for integral types which would be a disaster), so we both know that the first one is the only real feasible choice. – Athwart

Sure, I wrote it just for fun. I always use first approach – Alisha

@Bathsheba. I deleted my comment (because I had mistook the second option for a serious suggestion), but what I said was brackets make it clearer. That's true, I know how operator precedence works and brackets still just make it read better on the page. – Refined

Thanks. I use the brackets for readability. Also, if I use an inequality, I need to actually solve it to understand what it means, which is not very readable. Thanks. :) – Softball

@NathanCooper: Personally I find excess parentheses obfuscating and annoying. But I work on scientific libraries so am prepared to be part of the exception group as opposed to the normal group. – Athwart

I agree to put excessive brackets in complicated situations, but that expression looks pretty short and standard. Not sure how is it possible to misread it – Alisha

Arguing against myself here, note that 0 < x & x < 5 would behave very differently due to & and && being very distant in the precedence table! – Athwart

What kind of nanny state is C# trying to enforce? It's valid in C and C++. – Athwart

Actually, it will works same as &&. According to MSDN: "Binary & operators are predefined for the integral types and bool. For integral types, & computes the logical bitwise AND of its operands. For bool operands, & computes the logical AND of its operands; that is, the result is true if and only if both its operands are true." – Alisha

Answer 3

A LINQ solution, not shorter but more readable:

bool b = new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 }.Contains(x);

Splendor

That works for the example in OP's post, but the question is about a general shorthand notation for "Smaller than and greater than". How would you handle bool b = (x > 212) && (x < 45872);? – Tragedian

@LarsKristensen - then you can use something like Enumerable.Range(212+1, 45872-212-1) – Splendor

Yes, but then it's not a shorthand version. – Tragedian