Generic types can use placeholders for actual types, and you may be wondering why that can be exciting.
There are a number of data types, for example, that have no NULL value. Integers for example, and also Boolean values, have no way of signaling that a value is invalid or not set. You can work around this by defining that an integer with 0 (or -1) should be an “undefined” value. But what if all numbers can be legal values? With Booleans, it’s the same: while you can define $false as “undefined”, there are times when you really need: $true, $false, and undefined.
Generics to the rescue, you can use the Nullable type to create your own nullable type from any valid value type. Here’s an example:
[Nullable[int]]$number = $null [Nullable[bool]]$flag = $null $number $flag
Try the same with regular data types, and you always get a conversion:
PS C:\> [int]$null 0 PS C:\> [bool]$null False PS C:\>
