Change InferType() to an abstract method and implement for every ILInstruction.
With this change, we now always have enough information to create a variable of an appropriate type to store the result of evaluating the instruction.
This previously was not the case for instructions producing "other value type", for which the stacktype-based fallback incorrectly produced `object`.
NullPropagationTransform only rewrites "x != null ? x.Chain : fallback"
into "x?.Chain ?? fallback" when the chain's inferred type is a
non-nullable value type, and InferType had no case for ldlen. Array length
therefore came back as UnknownType, so "arr?.Length ?? 0" was left as a
ternary.
The inferred type mirrors ExpressionBuilder.VisitLdLen, which decides
between Array.Length and Array.LongLength from the result type alone.
Found while investigating #3704, where the surviving ternary also keeps the
tested array in a stack slot and strands the typeof of a dynamic call's
static target. That issue is fixed separately in #4072, whose DynamicTests
cases pinned the ternary as expected output; those blocks round-trip
exactly now, so they are gone.
Also carries a review follow-up that missed #4072: the static-target test
in VisitDynamicInvokeMemberInstruction is a plain null check, the way
DynamicInvokeMemberInstruction itself tests the field, rather than a
pattern match binding a name it does not need.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5[1m]:Claude Code
HandleConditionalOperator collapses `if (c) a = x; else a = y;` into a
conditional operator, innermost first, and keeps going for as long as the
chain does. A source else-if ladder therefore comes back as one expression,
however long it was: the sample in #2027 decompiles to a single
2095-character statement, and one NLog method to 2230 characters nested 29
brackets deep.
ExpandNestedConditionals undoes that past one level, so a statement keeps at
most a single conditional operator.
It runs at the end of the pipeline rather than inside ExpressionTransforms,
because every transform that needs its input to be a single expression has
to see the collapsed form first: object and collection initializers, `with`,
switch expressions, interpolated string handlers, and the query lambdas the
C# stage later rewrites into clauses. Cutting the chain earlier leaves an
if-else between the statements they pattern-match on and they silently stop
matching - an object initializer assigning an init-only member then does not
even compile. The same reasoning ReduceNestingTransform gives for walking
back ConditionDetection's aggressive else-inlining once the structure is
settled.
A chain already stored to a variable is expanded into that variable, so
nothing has to be decided: the variable carries its own type. A chain in any
other position - an argument, a return value, a field store - has nothing to
expand into, and ILExtraction can give it one. The temporary ILExtraction
creates is typed from the stack type though, where `I4` is `int`, `bool`,
`char` and every enum at once, so extracting on that basis turned a bool
into `int num` with `if (num == 0)` and an enum into
`dbType = (IsFixedLength ? 22 : 0)`.
InferExpectedType is the counterpart to InferType that answers this: where
InferType asks what a value is, it asks what the position the value flows
into says it should be - a parameter, a return type, a field, all of which
carry their type in metadata. Extraction is done only where that question
has an answer, and the temporary is typed from it. The receiver of a call
then reads `XPathNavigator xPathNavigator`, not `object obj` with a cast
back, and a field store keeps its enum's member names.
The Pretty fixture covers what must NOT change: an array initializer, a
query lambda, a ref local, a switch expression, an object initializer with
an init-only member, a `with` expression, a catch-when filter and both
constructor-initializer forms. The positive case is an ILPretty test,
because a Pretty fixture is its own input and expected output, and a chain
that round-trips through collapse and expansion has no fixed point there.
The PdbGen test records the cost in breakpoints: the compiler's single
sequence point for the collapsed statement becomes one per expanded
statement, which is inherent to splitting a statement in two.
#2027
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5:Claude Code
This was due to StackType.O doing double-duty as `object` and `other`.
While ExpressionBuilder would often improve the type of such locals, the `object` nevertheless ended up used in a couple of places, e.g. via the `typeHint`. This could result in value types being boxed even though the original IL didn't contain any `box` instruction.
This is an attempt to use better types for stack slot variables created by ILReader. The idea is: there aren't many IL instructions that produce "other" value types, and `InferType()` already handles pretty much all of them, so we can use that to assign types to our stack slots.
It's a bit more tricky if the stack is pushed to on multiple branches that join together before the value is used: here the variable type must be suitable for both assignments. In this case, we go back to the previously-used stacktype.
This also makes CleanUpTryFinallyAroundPinnedRegion() redundant as it is no longer necessary to trigger the array-to-pointer transform; so the normal elimination of pinned variable resets is sufficient.