Confused on what != null does

[BenCour]

Why do we need the if statement in the Playhiteffect method? Couldn’t you just have the code that’s in the brackets.

void PlayHitEffect()
    {
        if (hitEffect != null)
        {
            ParticleSystem instance = Instantiate(hitEffect, transform.position, Quaternion.identity);
            Destroy(instance.gameObject, instance.main.duration + instance.main.startLifetime.constantMax);
        }
    }

[Nina]

Hi BenCour,

!= means “not equal”, thus hitEffect != null translates to "hitEffect is not null".

Yes, we could execute the code without the if-statement but if hitEffect is null, Instantiate(hitEffect, ...) would throw a NullReferenceException error. To prevent this from happening, we check for null.

Did this clear it up for you?

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[BenCour]

Yes that clears it up thanks