Check to see if a given object (reference or value type) is equal to its default

Question

I'm trying to find a way to check and see if the value of a given object is equal to its default value. I've looked around and come up with this:

    public static bool IsNullOrDefault<T>(T argument)
    {
        if (argument is ValueType || argument != null)
        {
            return object.Equals(argument, default(T));
        }
        return true;
    }

The problem I'm having is that I want to call it like this:

            object o = 0;
            bool b = Utility.Utility.IsNullOrDefault(o);

Yes o is an object, but I want to make it figure out the base type and check the default value of that. The base type, in this case, is an integer and I want to know in this case if the value is equal to default(int), not default(object).

I'm starting to think this might not be possible.

Answer 1

In your example, your integer is boxed and therefore your T is going to be object, and the default of object is null, so that's not valuable to you. If the object is a value type, you could get an instance of it (which would be the default) to use as a comparison. Something like:

if (argument is ValueType)
{
   object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(argument.GetType());
   return obj.Equals(argument);
}

You'd want to deal with other possibilities before resorting to this. Marc Gravell's answer brings up some good points to consider, but for a full version of your method, you might have

public static bool IsNullOrDefault<T>(T argument)
{
    // deal with normal scenarios
    if (argument == null) return true;
    if (object.Equals(argument, default(T))) return true;

    // deal with non-null nullables
    Type methodType = typeof(T);
    if (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(methodType) != null) return false;

    // deal with boxed value types
    Type argumentType = argument.GetType();
    if (argumentType.IsValueType && argumentType != methodType) 
    {
        object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(argument.GetType());
        return obj.Equals(argument);
    }

    return false;
}