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What language is this? I'd expect a language with a ? -type would not use an Optional type at all.

In languages such as OCaml, Haskell and Rust this of course works as you say.

This is Swift, where Type? is syntax sugar for Optional<Type>. Swift's Optional is a standard sum type, with a lot of syntax sugar and compiler niceties to make common cases easier and nicer to work with.

Right, so it's not like a union type Type | Null. Then naturally it works the same way as in the languages I listed.

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