Unexpected NullReferenceException when accessing properties of a derived class in C# 10 with polymorphism
I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help... I'm working with a frustrating scenario with polymorphism in my C# 10 application where I'm getting a `NullReferenceException` when trying to access a property of a derived class from a base class reference. I have a base class `Animal` and a derived class `Dog`. Here's a simplified version of my code: ```csharp public class Animal { public virtual string Name { get; set; } } public class Dog : Animal { public override string Name { get; set; } = "Dog"; public string Bark() => "Woof!"; } public class Program { public static void Main(string[] args) { Animal myAnimal = GetAnimal(); // This could return null Console.WriteLine(myAnimal.Name); Console.WriteLine(((Dog)myAnimal).Bark()); // NullReferenceException here } private static Animal GetAnimal() { // Simulate a scenario where the returned animal is null return null; } } ``` When I run this code, I get the following behavior: ``` Unhandled exception. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ``` I have checked that `GetAnimal()` can indeed return `null` in some cases, but I'm not sure how to safely handle this situation without causing the application to crash. My current workaround is to check if `myAnimal` is `null` before casting, but it feels like there should be a cleaner way to manage the polymorphic behavior while preventing exceptions. Any insights on best practices or design patterns that could help address this scenario would be greatly appreciated! My development environment is Ubuntu. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this.