You will be able to see "Hello World" printed on the screen.
C# is an object oriented programming language. In Object Oriented Programming methodology a program consists of various objects that interact with each other by means of actions. The actions that an object may take are called methods. Objects of the same kind are said to have the same type or, more often, are said to be in the same class.
For example, let us consider a Rectangle object. It has attributes like length and width. Depending upon the design, it may need ways for accepting the values of these attributes, calculating area and display details.
Let us look at an implementation of a Rectangle class and discuss C# basic syntax, on the basis of our observations in it:
using System;
namespace RectangleApplication
{
class Rectangle
{
// member variables
double length;
double width;
public void Acceptdetails()
{
length = 4.5;
width = 3.5;
}
public double GetArea()
{
return length * width;
}
public void Display()
{
Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", length);
Console.WriteLine("Width: {0}", width);
Console.WriteLine("Area: {0}", GetArea());
}
}
class ExecuteRectangle
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Rectangle r = new Rectangle();
r.Acceptdetails();
r.Display();
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces following result:
Length: 4.5
Width: 3.5
Area: 15.75
The using Keyword
The first statement in any C# program is
using System;
The using keyword is used for including the namespaces in the program. A program can include multiple using statements.
The class Keyword
The class keyword is used for declaring a class.
Comments in C#
Comments are used for explaining code. Compilers ignore the comment entries. The multiline comments in C# programs start with /* and terminates with the characters */ as shown below:
/* This program demonstrates
The basic syntax of C# programming
Language */
Single line comments are indicated by the '//' symbol. For example,
}//end class Rectangle
Member Variables
Variables are attributes or data members of a class, used for storing data. In the preceding program, the Rectangle class has two member variables named length and width.
Member Functions
Functions are set of statements that perform a specific task. The member functions of a class are declared within the class. Our sample class Rectangle contains three member functions:AcceptDetails, GetArea and Display.
Instantiating a Class
In the preceding program, the class ExecuteRectangle is used as a class which contains the Main()method and instantiates the Rectangle class.
Identifiers
An identifier is a name used to identify a class, variable, function, or any other user-defined item. The basic rules for naming classes in C# are as follows:
A name must begin with a letter that could be followed by a sequence of letters, digits (0 - 9) or underscore. The first character in an identifier cannot be a digit.
It must not contain any embedded space or symbol like ? - +! @ # % ^ & * ( ) [ ] { } . ; : " ' / and \. However an underscore ( _ ) can be used.
It should not be a C# keyword.
C# Keywords
Keywords are reserved words predefined to the C# compiler. These keywords cannot be used as identifiers, however, if you want to use these keywords as identifiers, you may prefix the keyword with the @ character.
In C# some identifiers have special meaning in context of code, such as get and set, these are called contextual keywords.
The following table lists the reserved keywords and contextual keywords in C#:
| Reserved Keywords |
| abstract | as | base | bool | break | byte | case |
| catch | char | checked | class | const | continue | decimal |
| default | delegate | do | double | else | enum | event |
| explicit | extern | false | finally | fixed | float | for |
| foreach | goto | if | implicit | in | in (generic
modifier) | int |
| interface | internal | is | lock | long | namespace | new |
| null | object | operator | out | out
(generic
modifier) | override | params |
| private | protected | public | readonly | ref | return | sbyte |
| sealed | short | sizeof | stackalloc | static | string | struct |
| switch | this | throw | true | try | typeof | uint |
| ulong | unchecked | unsafe | ushort | using | virtual | void |
| volatile | while | | | | | |
| Contextual Keywords |
| add | alias | ascending | descending | dynamic | from | get |
| global | group | into | join | let | orderby | partial
(type) |
partial
(method) | remove | select | set | | |
In C#, variables are categorized into the following types:
Value types
Reference types
Pointer types
Value Types
Value type variables can be assigned a value directly. They are derived from the classSystem.ValueType.
The value types directly contain data. Some examples are int, char, float, which stores numbers, alphabets and floating point numbers respectively. When you declare an int type, the system allocates memory to store the value.
The following table lists the available value types in C# 2010:
| Type | Represents | Range | Default
Value |
| bool | Boolean value | True or False | False |
| byte | 8-bit unsigned integer | 0 to 255 | 0 |
| char | 16-bit Unicode character | U +0000 to U +ffff | '\0' |
| decimal | 128-bit precise decimal values with 28-29 significant digits | (-7.9 x 1028 to 7.9 x 1028) / 100 to 28 | 0.0M |
| double | 64-bit double-precision floating point type | (+/-)5.0 x 10-324 to (+/-)1.7 x 10308 | 0.0D |
| float | 32-bit single-precision floating point type | -3.4 x 1038 to + 3.4 x 1038 | 0.0F |
| int | 32-bit signed integer type | -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 | 0 |
| long | 64-bit signed integer type | -923,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 | 0L |
| sbyte | 8-bit signed integer type | -128 to 127 | 0 |
| short | 16-bit signed integer type | -32,768 to 32,767 | 0 |
| uint | 32-bit unsigned integer type | 0 to 4,294,967,295 | 0 |
| ulong | 64-bit unsigned integer type | 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 | 0 |
| ushort | 16-bit unsigned integer type | 0 to 65,535 | 0 |
To get the exact size of a type or a variable on a particular platform, you can use the sizeof method. The expression sizeof(type) yields the storage size of the object or type in bytes. Following is an example to get the size of int type on any machine:
namespace DataTypeApplication
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Size of int: {0}", sizeof(int));
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces following result:
Size of int: 4
Reference Types
The reference types do not contain the actual data stored in a variable, but they contain a reference to the variables.
In other words, they refer to a memory location. Using more than one variable, the reference types can refer to a memory location. If the data in the memory location is changed by one of the variables, the other variable automatically reflects this change in value. Example of built in reference types are:object, dynamic and string.
OBJECT TYPE
The Object Type is the ultimate base class for all data types in C# Common Type System(CTS). Object is an alias for System.Object class. So object types can be assigned values of any other types, value types, reference types, predefined or user-defined types. However, before assigning values, it needs type conversion.
When a value type is converted to object type, it is called boxing and on the other hand, when an object type is converted to a value type it is called unboxing.
object obj;
obj = 100; // this is boxing
DYNAMIC TYPE
You can store any type of value in the dynamic data type variable. Type checking for these types of variables takes place at runtime.
Syntax for declaring a dynamic type is:
dynamic <variable_name> = value;
For example,
dynamic d = 20;
Dynamic types are similar to object types except that, type checking for object type variables takes place at compile time, whereas that for the dynamic type variables take place at run time.
STRING TYPE
The String Type allows you to assign any string values to a variable. The string type is an alias for the System.String class. It is derived from object type. The value for a string type can be assigned using string literals in two forms: quoted and @quoted.
For example,
String str = "Tutorials Point";
A @quoted string literal looks like:
@"Tutorials Point";
The user defined reference types are: class, interface, or delegate. We will discuss these types in later chapter.
Pointer Types
Pointer type variables store the memory address of another type. Pointers in C# have the same capabilities as in C or C++.
Syntax for declaring a pointer type is:
type* identifier;
For example,
char* cptr;
int* iptr;
We will discuss pointer types in the chapter 'Unsafe Codes'.
Type conversion is basically type casting, or converting one type of data to another type. In C#, type casting has two forms:
Implicit type conversion - these conversions are performed by C# in a type-safe manner. Examples are conversions from smaller to larger integral types, and conversions from derived classes to base classes.
Explicit type conversion - these conversions are done explicitly by users using the pre-defined functions. Explicit conversions require a cast operator.
The following example shows an explicit type conversion:
namespace TypeConversionApplication
{
class ExplicitConversion
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
double d = 5673.74;
int i;
// cast double to int.
i = (int)d;
Console.WriteLine(i);
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces following result:
5673
C# Type Conversion Methods
C# provides the following built-in type conversion methods:
| S.N | Methods & Description |
| 1 | ToBoolean
Converts a type to a Boolean value, where possible. |
| 2 | ToByte
Converts a type to a byte. |
| 3 | ToChar
Converts a type to a single Unicode character, where possible. |
| 4 | ToDateTime
Converts a type (integer or string type) to date-time structures. |
| 5 | ToDecimal
Converts a floating point or integer type to a decimal type. |
| 6 | ToDouble
Converts a type to a double type. |
| 7 | ToInt16
Converts a type to a 16-bit integer. |
| 8 | ToInt32
Converts a type to a 32-bit integer. |
| 9 | ToInt64
Converts a type to a 64-bit integer. |
| 10 | ToSbyte
Converts a type to a signed byte type. |
| 11 | ToSingle
Converts a type to a small floating point number. |
| 12 | ToString
Converts a type to a string. |
| 13 | ToType
Converts a type to a specified type. |
| 14 | ToUInt16
Converts a type to an unsigned int type. |
| 15 | ToUInt32
Converts a type to an unsigned long type. |
| 16 | ToUInt64
Converts a type to an unsigned big integer. |
The following example converts various value types to string type:
namespace TypeConversionApplication
{
class StringConversion
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
int i = 75;
float f = 53.005f;
double d = 2345.7652;
bool b = true;
Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
Console.WriteLine(f.ToString());
Console.WriteLine(d.ToString());
Console.WriteLine(b.ToString());
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces following result:
75
53.005
2345.7652
True