V3148. Casting potential 'null' value to a value type can lead to NullReferenceException.

The analyzer has detected an unsafe cast of a potentially null reference to a value type. Even though no dereference as such takes place in this case, such a cast will still result in raising a 'NullReferenceException'.

The simplest way to get this behavior is as follows:

void Foo()
{
  object b = null;
  var c = (bool)b;
}

This is what the fixed code should look like:

void Foo()
{
  object b = null;
  var c = (bool)(b ?? false);
}

A warning will also be issued if a potentially null variable is found to be cast to any value type, say, struct:

protected override void ProcessMessageAfterSend(....)
{
  ....
  (DateTime)msg.GetMetadata(....);
  ....
}
public object GetMetadata(string tag)
{
  object data;
  if (metadata != null && metadata.TryGetValue(tag, out data))
  { return data; }
  return null;
}

The diagnostic checked the return result of the 'GetMetadata' method and found that it could return 'null'. The type cast in this example needs a null check too:

protected override void ProcessMessageAfterSend(....)
{
  ....
  (DateTime)(msg.GetMetadata(....) ?? new DateTime());
  ....
}

This diagnostic is classified as:

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